RELIGIO 
FOR  TO-DAY 

*  m  m  m  m 

JOHN  HAYNES  HOLMES 


I 


RELIGION  FOR  TO-DAY 


BOOKS  BY 
JOHN  HAYNES  HOLMES 

THE  REVOLUTIONARY  FUNCTION  OF 
THE  MODERN  CHURCH 

MARRIAGE  AND  DIVORCE 
Is  DEATH  THE  END? 
NEW  WARS  FOR  OLD 
RELIGION  FOR  TO-DAY 


RELIGION  FOR  TO-DAY 

Various  Interpretations  of  the 

Thought  and  Practise  of 

the  New  Religion 

of  our  Time 


BY 
JOHN  HAYNES  HOLMES 


NEW  YORK 

DODD,  MEAD  AND  COMPANY 
1917 


Of 


COPYRIGHT,  1917 
BY  DODD,  MEAD  AND  COMPANY,  INC. 


TO 

THE  MEMBERS  AND  FRIENDS 

OF  THE 

CHURCH  OF  THE  MESSIAH 

IN  COMMEMORATION  OF  THE  TEN 
YEARS  THEY  HAVE  SUSTAINED  ME  IN 

THE  MESSIAH  PULPIT 

THIS  BOOK  IS  GRATEFULLY  DEDICATED 


358031 


PREFACE 

The  contents  of  this  present  volume  comprise  a  list 
of  thirteen  addresses,  selected  out  of  the  many  de- 
livered in  the  Messiah  Pulpit,  and  elsewhere  on  mani- 
fold occasions,  during  the  last  ten  years.  These  par- 
ticular addresses,  with  the  exception  of  slight  verbal 
corrections,  are  printed  here  exactly  as  spoken  to  my 
audiences.  They  are  chosen  for  publication  not  be- 
cause of  any  connection  with  one  another  in  form  and 
content;  and  no  attempt  has  been  made  to  arrange  or 
adapt  them  so  that  they  may  present  a  systematic 
whole.  Each  has  been  included  in  this  collection  be- 
cause of  its  own  especial  character  as  a  representative 
expression  of  radical  thought  on  religious  questions  of 
the  day.  In  so  far  as  they  are  subject  to  any  kind 
of  classification,  they  have  fallen  naturally  into  four 
groups.  The  first  address,  "  The  New  Religion,"  may 
be  regarded  as  an  introduction  to,  or  summary  of,  the 
general  theme  of  the  book.  Then  follow,  in  three  ad- 
dresses, statements  of  certain  principles  underlying  the 
liberal  religion  of  our  time.  The  next  three  addresses 
provide  examples  of  certain  aspects  of  the  character- 
istic thought  of  this  religion.  The  third  group,  also 
of  three  addresses,  embodies  different  illustrations  of 
that  social  application  of  religious  idealism  which  con- 

vii 


viii  PREFACE 

stitutes  the  distinctive  feature  of  "  religion  for  to- 
day." In  the  last  group  are  three  addresses,  delivered 
shortly  after  the  opening  of  the  Great  War,  which 
may  be  taken  as  indicating  one  phase  of  the  spiritual 
reaction  which  followed  upon  this  stupendous  event. 
It  is  obvious  that  this  collection  of  addresses, 
like  every  collection  of  the  kind,  lacks  the  merit 
of  presenting  a  systematic  and  thorough  treatment 
of  the  subject;  and  fails  altogether  to  touch  upon 
certain  important  aspects  of  the  subject,  as  for  ex- 
ample, immortality.  Serious  as  these  facts  are,  they 
are  necessarily  involved  in  the  limitations  of  the  scheme 
here  adopted,  and  must  therefore  in  the  beginning  be 
accepted  and  discounted.  On  the  other  hand,  is  the 
unquestioned  advantage  of  such  a  collection  in  open- 
ing up  new  lines  of  thought,  in  offering  a  viewpoint  and 
a  method  for  the  consideration  of  questions  of  religious 
theory  and  practice,  in  quickening  by  flashlight  sug- 
gestions a  curiosity  to  know  and  understand  the  whole 
system  of  thought,  or  gospel  of  religion,  of  which  such 
glimpses  are  the  momentary  and  therefore  imperfect 
expression,  and  in  communicating  that  contagion  of 
the  free  spirit  which  is  the  Alpha  and  Omega  of  true 
religion  not  only  to-day  but  yesterday  and  forever. 
If  these  addresses  do  no  more  than  turn  an  occasional 
reader  from  the  old  religion  to  the  new,  help  an  oc- 
casional reader  who  has  already  abandoned  the  old  to 
find  the  new,  persuade  an  occasional  reader  who  has 
found  the  new  to  rejoice  and  then  convey  the  secret 
of  his  rejoicing  to  other  hearts,  I  shall  be  well  content. 


PREFACE  ix 

One  other  motive  underlies  the  publication  of  this 
volume.  On  February  4,  1917,  I  shall  complete  ten 
years  of  service  in  the  Messiah  Pulpit.  It  is  my  hope 
that,  to  the  dear  friends  who  have  "lent  me  (their) 
ears "  and  shared  with  me  their  hearts  during  this 
period,  these  addresses  here  collected  may  appear  as 
a  kind  of  record  of  our  long  and  happy  association. 
In  this  spirit  and  to  this  end,  I  have  taken  the  liberty 
of  dedicating  this  book  to  my  people.  Sensible  as  I 
am  of  the  inadequacy  of  this  slight  offering,  it  gives  me 
comfort  that  I  can  here  bear  public  testimony  to  my 
gratitude  and  affection. 

JOHN  HAYNES  HOLMES. 
Church  of  the  Messiah 
New  York  City 

December  1, 1916. 


TABLE  OF  CONTENTS 

PAGE 

PREFACE      .  vii 

INTRODUCTORY 
THE  NEW  RELIGION .       3 

STATEMENTS  OF  PRINCIPLE 

TRUTH,  NOT  TRADITION   .  27 

LIBERTY,  NOT  AUTHORITY 51 

JUSTICE,  NOT  CHARITY 72 

ASPECTS  OF  THOUGHT 

THE  DILEMMA  OF  DENIAL 103 

Is  GOD  A  PERSONALITY? 130 

THE  MODERN  CONCEPTION  OF  PRAYER 157 

SOCIAL  APPLICATIONS 

THE  CHURCH  AND  THE  WORLD 187 

LEGISLATION  AND  MORALS 210 

THE  CRIME  OF  CASTE 238 

THE  WAR 

MAN:  AN  END,  NOT  A  MEANS 265 

THE  GOD  OF  BATTLES 289 

Is  CHRISTIANITY  A  FAILURE?  .   311 


INTRODUCTORY 


RELIGION  FOR  TO-DAY 


THE  NEW  RELIGION 

IT  must  be  recognised  at  the  outset  of  our  discussion 
of  this  subject,  that,  in  the  deepest  and  finest  sense  of 
the  word,  the  new  religion  is  the  same  as  the  old 
religion.  There  is  a  great  truth  involved  in  the  majes- 
tic words  of  traditional  adoration,  "  As  it  was  in  the 
beginning,  is  now,  and  ever  shall  be,  world  without  end, 
Amen."  For  religion,  after  all,  has  to  do  fundamen- 
tally with  the  attempt  of  the  human  soul  to  get  into 
right  relations  with  God,  and  God,  by  the  very  nature 
of  his  being,  is  "  a  constant  quantity."  "  With  him  is 
no  variableness,  neither  shadow  of  turning."  "  He  is- 
the  same  yesterday,  to-day,  and  forever."  And  the 
same  therefore  must  be  the  endeavours  of  men  in  every 
age  to  find  him,  to  know  him,  to  love  him,  to  serve  him. 
Nothing  is  more  impressive  in  the  modern  study  of 
comparative  religions,  than  the  discovery  of  the  essen- 
tial identity  of  these  religions.  Turn  to  the  considera- 
tion of  any  people,  no  matter  how  remote,  or  of  any 
age,  no  matter  how  primitive,  and  you  find  that  re- 
ligions are  indeed  many,  but  that  religion  itself  is  one! 
Here  in  all  cases  do  we  find  the  recognition  of  some 
kind  of  a  supreme  being,  spiritual  in  nature,  who  is 
regarded  as  the  creator  of  the  universe,  the  source  of 

3 


4  RELIGION  K)R  TO-DAY 

living  energy,  and  the  ruler  of  the  world.  Here  do 
we  find  the  deliberate  and  persistent  endeavour  to  get 
into  relations  with  this  deity  —  to  understand  his  mind, 
propitiate  his  favour,  and  serve  his  purposes.  Here  do 
we  find  the  august  affirmation  of  the  essential  kinship 
of  humanity  with  God,  and  the  consequent  destiny  of 
every  human  soul  to  some  kind  of  immortality.  Espe- 
cially do  we  find  the  definition  and  inculcation  of  a  rule 
of  life  which  is  well  pleasing  unto  God  and  therefore 
necessary  to  happiness  and  prosperity  in  this  world 
and  in  the  next.  These  are  the  essential  ingredients 
of  religion  as  we  have  known  it  in  the  past.  And  what 
is  true  of  the  past,  is  true  also,  we  may  be  sure,  of  the 
future.  If  religion  is  destined  to  endure,  as  I  most 
certainly  believe  that  it  is,  it  will  continue  to  preserve, 
through  all  the  ages  that  are  to  come,  exactly  this 
same  content  which  I  have  just  described.  Religion 
will  always  be  the  same  in  its  search  after  God  if  haply 
it  may  find  him,  in  its  hopeful  expectancy  of  a  life 
beyond  the  grave,  in  its  belief  in  the  essential  integrity 
of  the  world,  in  its  faith  in  the  ultimate  triumph  of 
good  over  evil,  in  its  endeavours  after  the  kind  of  life 
which  will  bring  salvation  to  the  soul.  Experienced 
travellers  have  again  and  again  borne  testimony  to  the 
fact  that,  in  the  strangest  lands  of  earth,  one  can  feel 
at  home  in  the  public  ceremonies  of  religion,  for,  how- 
ever unfamiliar  the  language  and  practices  of  devotion, 
worship  is  still  worship  and  prayer  is  always  prayer. 
And  as  with  different  places,  so  also  with  different  ages ! 
If  you  and  I  were  suddenly  to  be  transported  this  day 


THE  NEW  RELIGION  5 

far  back  into  the  Athens  of  Pericles  or  the  Rome  of 
Augustus  or  the  Jerusalem  of  David,  we  would  un- 
doubtedly find  nothing  so  familiar  as  the  temples  and 
their  services.  And  if,  in  the  same  way,  we  were  sud- 
denly to  be  transported  far  ahead  into  some  distant 
Utopia  of  the  future,  it  is  altogether  certain  that  we 
would  recognise  nothing  so  quickly  as  the  religious 
activities  of  the  people.  The  religion  of  to-morrow  will 
be  in  all  essentials  the  religion  of  to-day,  just  as  the 
religion  of  to-day  in  all  its  essentials  is  still  the  religion 
of  yesterday. 

I  have  quoted  the  famous  saying,  "  religions  are 
many,  but  religion  is  one."  While  recognising  that  re- 
ligion is  indeed  one  and  the  same  thing  in  every  age  of 
human  experience,  it  is  important  for  us  to  recognise  that 
it  is  also  true  that  religions  are  nevertheless  "  many ! " 
Religion,  in  other  words,  which  is  permanent,  works  out 
into  all  sorts  and  kinds  of  religions,  which  are  passing. 
Every  age  has  its  own  particular  ideas,  experiences,  and 
hopes ;  and  inevitably  these  give  different  colour  or  shape 
to  the  expression  of  the  unvarying  religious  sentiment 
of  the  soul.  It  was  natural  for  the  Greeks,  who  culti- 
vated fertile  valleys  and  basked  in  pleasant  sunshine,  to 
interpret  religion  in  different  terms  of  thought  and 
practice  from  the  Iranians,  who  walked  on  rocky  path- 
ways and  wrestled  with  tempestuous  skies.  It  was  im- 
possible for  the  Romans,  who  became  the  masters  of 
the  world  and  the  builders  of  the  greatest  empire  of  law 
and  order  that  mankind  has  ever  seen,  to  express  their 
religious  emotions  in  the  form  of  institutions  and  cere- 


6  RELIGION  FOR  TO-DAY 

monials  which  would  have  much  identity  with  those  of 
the  Jews,  for  example,  who  were  for  centuries  the 
ravaged  victims  of  every  military  conqueror  of  the  East. 
It  was  inevitable  that  the  new  ideas,  which  came  rushing 
into  the  minds  of  men  like  a  loosened  flood  in  the  period 
of  the  Renaissance,  should  lead  to  a  transformation  in 
the  field  of  religion  no  less  revolutionary  and  epoch- 
making  than  the  transformation  in  the  field  of  culture. 
Religion  in  its  essence  is  undoubtedly  an  abiding  reality, 
as  I  have  said,  but  the  conceptions  of  religion  are  as  dif- 
ferent as  the  different  environments  in  which  men  live, 
the  different  experiences  which  they  undergo,  the  differ- 
ent perspectives  of  knowledge  and  aspiration  from 
which  they  gaze  upon  the  world.  Religion  is  like  a  river. 
The  same  great  tide  of  water  is  sweeping  on  from  the 
springs  in  the  distant  mountains  to  the  outlet  in  the  sea. 
But  here  it  is  "  the  still  waters  "  by  "  green  pastures," 
and  there  a  foaming  cataract  between  the  granite  walls 
of  a  mighty  canyon;  here  it  runs  smooth  and  clear 
through  sandy  soil,  there  it  is  discoloured  with  mud  or 
turgid  with  the  defilement  of  a  city's  refuse.  The  same 
river  is  a  hundred  different  rivers  as  it  makes  its  way  to 
the  sea  by  fields  and  mountains,  through  deserted  for- 
ests and  busy  villages,  by  quiet  farms  and  crashing 
factories.  And  so  with  religion!  Ever  the  same  in 
essence,  it  takes  on  a  new  and  distinct  character  in 
every  country  which  it  enters  and  in  every  age  through 
which  it  moves.  "  From  epoch  to  epoch,"  says  Maz- 
zini,  in  his  From  the  Council  to  God,  "  the  pages  of  the 
eternal  gospel  are  turned;  each  fresh  page,  disclosed 


THE  NEW  RELIGION  7 

by  the  ever-renovated  spirit  of  God,  indicates  a  period 
of  progress  marked  out  by  the  providential  plan,  and 
corresponds  historically  to  a  religion.  Each  religion 
sets  before  mankind  a  new  idea  —  each  is  a  fragment 
of  eternal  truth.  So  soon  as  that  idea,  comprehended 
by  the  intelligence  and  incarnated  in  the  hearts  of  man- 
kind, has  become  an  inalienable  part  of  universal  tra- 
dition, even  as  the  mountain  traveller,  on  reaching  one 
summit  beholds  another  rising  above  him,  so  is  a  new 
idea  or  aim  presented  to  the  human  mind,  and  a  new 
conception  of  life  arises  to  consecrate  that  idea.  Hav- 
ing accomplished  its  mission,  that  religion  disappears, 
leaving  behind  the  portion  of  truth  that  it  contained, 
and  straightway  a  new  religion  appears ! "  This 
phenomenon  of  the  passing  in  the  permanent  is  what 
we  have  in  mind  when  we  compare  the  religion  of  the 
Babylonians  with  that  of  the  Egyptians,  or  the  religion 
of  the  first  century  after  Christ  with  that  of  the  Middle 
Ages.  And  this  it  is  which  we  very  particularly  have 
in  mind,  when  we  look  into  the  future  and  try,  as  best 
we  can,  to  forecast  the  religion  of  to-morrow  as  con- 
trasted with  the  religion  of  yesterday  and  to-day. 

It  is  doubtful  if  ever  before,  in  the  spiritual  history 
of  the  race,  this  question  of  the  new  religion  was  ever 
so  pertinent  as  it  is  at  this  present  moment.  Concep- 
tions of  religion,  as  we  have  seen,  have  always  changed, 
as  the  ideas  and  experiences  of  men  have  changed. 
But  never  have  these  changes  been  so  fundamental  and 
so  universal  as  to-day.  It  was  this  fact  which 
prompted  Dr.  Charles  William  Eliot  to  the  writing  of 


8  RELIGION  FOR  TO-DAY 

his  famous  essay  on  The  Religion  of  the  Future.  "  The 
nineteenth  century,"  he  says,  "  immeasurably  sur- 
passed all  preceding  centuries  in  the  increase  of  knowl- 
edge, and  in  the  spread  of  scientific  inquiry  and  of  the 
passion  for  truth-seeking.  .  .  .  (My)  observing  and 
thinking  life  has  covered  the  extraordinary  period  since 
the  Voyage  of  the  Beagle  was  published,  anaesthesia  and 
the  telegraph  came  into  use,  Herbert  Spencer  issued 
his  first  series  of  papers  on  evolution,  Kuenen,  Robert- 
son Smith  and  Wellhausen  developed  and  vindicated 
Biblical  criticism,  J.  S.  Mill's  Principles  of  Political 
Economy  appeared,  and  the  United  States,  by  going  to 
war  with  Mexico,  set  in  operation  the  forces  which  abol- 
ished slavery  on  the  American  continent  —  the  period 
within  which  mechanical  power  came  to  be  widely  dis- 
tributed .  .  .  and  all  the  great  fundamental  indus- 
tries of  civilised  mankind  were  reconstructed."  It  is 
evident  that  such  changes  as  these,  within  the  period 
of  a  single  life-time,  have  brought  us  a  new  world,  and, 
by  the  same  token  also,  a  new  religion.  What  this 
religion  is,  no  man  can  say.  It  is  still  a  matter  more 
of  the  future  than  of  the  present.  But  what  this  new 
religion  is  destined  to  be,  at  some  date  not  too  far  dis- 
tant, is  a  matter  which  is  well  within  the  range  of  rea- 
sonable speculation.  Certain  large  characteristics  of 
the  new  religion  of  to-morrow  have  become  manifest  in 
our  time,  just  as,  on  an  early  day  of  the  creation,  cer- 
tain great  continents  lifted  themselves  out  of  the  waste 
of  chaos,  and  straightway  took  form  and  content. 
I.  In  the  first  place,  I  believe  we  may  affirm  that 


THE  NEW  RELIGION  9 

the  new  religion  will  be  a  scientific  religion.  For  three 
hundred  years  or  more,  the  battle  has  been  raging 
between  theology  and  science.  At  first  the  conflict 
seemed  to  be  concerned  with  the  facts  about  the  crucial 
problems  of  the  origin,  destiny  and  character  of  the 
world.  On  the  one  side  was  religion,  with  a  great  mass 
of  legends  and  traditions,  gathered  up  from  all  sorts  of 
ancient  sources,  Jewish,  classic,  and  barbarian.  On 
the  other  side  was  science  with  a  rapidly  accumulating 
mass  of  facts  gathered  up  from  observatories, 
laboratories,  archaeological  expeditions  and  historical 
researches.  In  no  single  instance,  so  far  as  I  know, 
did  the  traditions  of  the  priest  match  with  the  con- 
clusions of  the  scientist.  And  it  was  the  necessity, 
thus  created,  of  finding  out  which  side  of  the  contro- 
versy was  to  be  trusted,  that  led  to  the  discovery  that 
there  is  something  more  fundamental  involved  here  than 
any  mere  dispute  as  to  doctrines  and  facts. 

At  the  heart  of  this  whole  business  is  a  matter  of  atti- 
tude or  method.  Are  we  to  believe  that  truth  has  been 
disclosed  all  at  once  in  the  past  by  some  miraculous  pro- 
cess of  revelation,  or  are  we  to  believe  that  truth  is 
disclosed  little  by  little  by  the  wholly  natural  and  infi- 
nitely laborious  process  of  observation,  investigation 
and  experimentation?  Is  knowledge  something  that  is 
definite  in  amount  and  determined  in  character,  or  is 
it  something  which  is  ever  growing  and  unfolding  as 
man  penetrates  deeper  and  deeper  into  the  constitution 
of  things  ?  Are  we  living  in  a  world,  wherein  all  things 
past,  present  and  future,  have  been  disclosed,  or  are 


10  RELIGION  FOR  TO-DAY 

we  living  in  a  world  which,  as  Immanuel  Kant  put  it  so 
vividly,  is  but  a  little  island  of  the  known,  washed  on 
every  shore  by  the  vast  waters  of  the  unknown?  Is  the 
book  of  wisdom,  written,  closed  and  sealed  for  all  eter- 
nity, or  is  page  after  page  still  being  written  with  the 
blood  and  tears  of  striving  men?  Here  in  this  matter 
not  of  fact  but  of  attitude,  not  of  conclusion  but  of 
method,  not  of  letter  but  of  spirit,  is  the  real  issue  in 
this  three  centuries'  old  conflict  between  science  and 
theology.  And  it  is  an  issue,  let  me  state  with  all  pos- 
sible emphasis,  which  has  been  definitely  decided  on  the 
side  of  science.  Dr.  Draper  in  his  History  of  the  Con- 
flict Between  Religion  and  Science  and  Dr.  Andrew  D. 
White  in  his  History  of  the  Warfare  of  Science  with 
Theology,  have  together  demonstrated  that,  on  every 
point  where  these  two  great  interests  have  joined  bat- 
tle, science  has  emerged  triumphant.  And  it  is  this 
which  the  religion  of  to-morrow,  unlike  most  of  the 
religion  of  to-day,  is  going  to  recognise  and  acclaim. 
The  new  religion  of  the  future,  as  I  have  said,  will  be 
a  scientific  religion.  It  will  abandon  to  science  once 
for  all  the  entire  world  of  natural  phenomena,  and 
accept  as  the  basis  of  its  own  teachings  the  facts  which 
science  discovers  and  establishes.  It  will  abandon,  in 
its  own  particular  fields  of  study,  the  whole  theological 
method  of  deduction  from  a  priori  premises,  and  accept 
and  practise  the  scientific  method  of  induction  from 
facts  observed  and  tested.  It  will  abandon  that  pre- 
sumptuous idea  of  a  full,  final  and  infallible  revelation 
which  Herbert  Spencer  well  dubbed  "the  impiety  of  the 


THE  NEW  RELIGION  11 

pious,"  and  accept  that  attitude  of  reverent  and  yet 
curious  agnosticism  which  becomes  a  finite  mind  when 
brought  face  to  face  with  an  infinite  universe.  Above 
all,  will  it  abandon  its  reverence  of  the  past  as  the  re- 
pository of  divine  truth,  and  look  forward  confidently 
to  the  future  for  the  apprehension  of  those  hidden 
realities  which  "  eye  hath  not  seen,  nor  ear  heard,  nor 
the  heart  of  man  conceived."  The  religion  of  to-mor- 
row will  have  no  quarrel  with  science,  nor  science  with 
religion.  On  the  contrary,  these  two  traditional 
antagonists  •  will  become  colleagues,  working  side  by 
side,  in  one  common  spirit  of  devotion,  for  the  dis- 
covery of  truth  and  the  enlargement  of  life.  And 
this  new  alliance,  in  place  of  the  old  hostility,  will 
mean  at  least  three  momentous  changes  for  the  religion 
of  to-morrow. 

(1)  First  of  all,  it  will  mean  the  end  of  those 
numerous  superstitions  which  have  ever  been  the  accom- 
paniment of  the  religious  sentiment,  and  have  made 
religion  quite  as  much  a  source  of  fear  as  of  comfort 
to  the  human  heart.  Out  of  the  centuries  gone  by 
have  survived  a  thousand  and  one  extraordinary  ideas 
about  man's  history  in  the  past  and  his  destiny  in  the 
future.  Some  of  these  superstitions  are  based  on 
ancient  legends  of  the  race,  the  origin  of  which  no  man 
knoweth  at  this  time  —  some  are  the  consequence  of 
dogmatic  speculation  or  malevolent  invention  —  all  are 
the  hideous  brood  of  ignorance  and  fear.  And  all  are 
put  to  flight  by  the  scientific  spirit  which  deals  with 
facts  and  not  with  fables.  In  this  sense,  the  science 


12  RELIGION  FOR  TO-DAY 

of  our  time  must  be  regarded  as  the  great  liberator  of 
the  soul  from  the  bondage  of  superstition  into  the  free- 
dom of  reality.  The  more  we  know  the  universe,  the 
more  do  we  find  that  its  laws  are  to  be  trusted  — 
"  that  its  ways  are  ways  of  pleasantness  and  all  its 
paths  are  peace."  Consider,  if  you  will,  the  theologi- 
cal bogies  that  have  been  shattered,  the  ecclesiastical 
tyrannies  that  have  been  overthrown,  the  human  ter- 
rors that  have  been  dissipated,  not  only  by  the  facts 
which  science  has  revealed  to  us  but  by  the  method 
which  it  has  taught  us,  and  at  once  you  will  see  the 
beneficent  contribution  which  it  has  made  to  the  religion 
of  to-morrow. 

(2)  In  the  second  place,  this  union  of  science  and 
religion  will  end  the  reign  of  authority  in  the  realm  of 
things  spiritual.  "  The  decline  of  reliance  upon  abso- 
lute authority,"  says  Dr.  Eliot,  in  his  The  Religion  of 
the  Future,  "  is  one  of  the  most  significant  phenomena 
of  our  time."  This  decline  is  to  be  seen  everywhere  — 
in  government,  in  education,  in  business,  in  the  family. 
But  nowhere  is  it  more  marked  than  in  the  church. 
The  present  generation  has  learned  to  distrust  any 
theory  of  the  world  which  places  authority  in  a  book, 
or  an  institution,  or  a  creed  ^  and  this  distrust  is  des- 
tined to  increase,  until  it  has  "been  transformed  into  out- 
and-out  disbelief.  Science  is  teaching  once  for  all  that 
reason  is  the  only  criterion  of  truth  —  and  the  mind  of 
man  therefore  the  only  genuine  seat  of  authority.  All 
of  which  means  that  the  religion  of  to-morrow,  like  the 
science  of  to-day,  will  be  free  from  all  external  pressure, 


THE  NEW  RELIGION  13 

and  thus  be  guided  and  controlled  by  nothing  but  the 
inward  impulse  of  the  inquiring  spirit. 

(3)  And  lastly,  the  establishment  of  a  scientific- 
religion  will  mean  the  end  of  all  bigotry  and  dogmatism.  | 
No  longer  will  the  religious  mind  be  closed  to  new 
inquiry,  and  the  religious  hand  be  lifted  to  smite  the 
new  inquirer.  On  the  contrary,  the  religion  of  to- 
morrow will  be  as  open  to  fresh  revelations  of  God's 
truth  as  any  department  of  science  which  is  known  to 
our  age.  Such  persecution  as  the  Catholic  church 
visited  upon  Copernicus,  Galileo  and  Kepler  because 
of  their  searching  of  the  heavens  —  such  opposition  as 
the  Protestant  church  offered  to  Darwin,  Huxley  and 
Spencer  because  of  their  discovery  and  formulation  of 
the  doctrine  of  evolution  —  will  be  utterly  impossible 
in  the  new  religion  which  is  even  now  dawning  upon  the 
world.  Thomas  More,  in  his  Utopia,  prophesied  very 
definitely  regarding  the  religion  of  the  future.  In  some 
things  he  was  right,  and  in  some  things  wrong.  But 
his  vision  was  as  accurate  as  it  was  beautiful  when  he 
said  of  the  Utopians  —  "  This  is  one  of  their  laws,  that 
no  man  ought  to  be  punished  for  his  religion.  .  .  . 
Every  man  might  be  of  what  religion  he  pleased,  and 
might  draw  others  to  it  "  y  the  force  of  argument,  and 
by  amicable  and  modest  ways,  but  without  bitterness 
against  those  of  other  opinions.  This  law  was  made 
not  only  for  preserving  the  public  peace,  but  because 
.  .  .  the  interest  of  religion  itself  required  it." 

II.  When  we  have  said  that  the  new  religion  will 
be  a  scientific  religion,  we  have  named  only  the  first  of 


14  RELIGION  FOR  TO-DAY 

many  changes  that  are  destined  to  take  place  in  the 
gradual  transition  from  the  present  to  the  future.  As 
a  further  characteristic  of  this  new  religion,  I  would 
here  name,  in  the  second  place,  the  moral  sentiment. 
The  religion  of  the  future  will  not  only  be  scientific, 
but  it  will  also  be  dominated  by  the  ethical  as  contrasted 
with  the  theological  point  of  view.  Not  much  longer 
will  the  church  content  itself  with  maintaining  sacra- 
ments and  rites  and  ceremonials  of  one  kind  and  another 
as  the  talismans  of  salvation.  Not  much  longer  will  it 
point  to  creeds  and  rituals  as  the  sine  qua  non  of  reli- 
gious faith.  Already  have  the  great  masses  of  mankind 
in  our  age  and  generation  decided  that  these  things 
have  nothing  essentially  to  do  with  religion  in  itself, 
and,  by  severing  their  connection  with  the  church,  given 
evidence  of  their  contempt  for  an  institution  which  does 
those  things  which  it  ought  not  to  do,  and  leaves  undone 
those  things  which  it  ought  to  do.  The  vital  thing  in 
religion,  we  know  to-day,  is  not  faith,  but  character 
—  not  acceptance  of  creeds,  but  obedience  to  the  moral 
law  —  not  conformity  to  theological  tenets  and  eccles- 
iastical obligations,  but  glad  and  free  allegiance  to  the 
spiritual  ideals  of  the  soul.  Not  what  a  man  believes 
or  does  not  believe  —  not  what  he  thinks  or  does  not 
think  about  the  birth  of  Jesus,  the  resurrection  of  the 
body,  or  the  fall  of  man  —  not  what  he  does  or  does  not 
do  in  relation  to  the  traditional  church  practices  of 
worship,  prayer  and  praise  —  but  what  a  man  is  as  a 
man  —  the  purity  of  his  private  life,  the  justice  and 
generosity  of  his  relations  with  his  f ellowmen,  the  quick- 


THE  NEW  RELIGION  15 

ness  of  his  sympathies,  the  sincerity  of  his  convictions, 
the  integrity  of  his  word  and  bond  —  this  is  the  true 
test  of  religion.  Character  is  the  great  thing  in  the 
practical  life  of  the  present  day,  and  this  will  be  the 
essential  thing,  we  may  be  sure,  in  the  religion  of  to- 
morrow.. Creeds  and  rituals  and  confessions  —  all 
these  are  fated  to  disappear;  and  in  their  places  will 
remain  the  moral  sentiment  as  the  all-sufficient  content 
of  religion. 

If  we  desire  any  particular  evidence  of  the  certainty 
of  this  transition  from  theology  to  morality,  from 
creed  to  character,  we  find  it  in  abundance  in  the  great 
revival  movement  of  the  Rev.  "  Billy  "  Sunday,  which  is 
now  arousing  such  interest  throughout  the  country. 
This  crusade  has  of  course  all  the  outward  character- 
istics of  the  traditional  revivals  of  the  past.  There  is 
the  same  crude  theological  teachings,  the  same  clever 
understanding  of  mob  psychology,  the  same  insistent 
appeal  to  prejudice  and  fear.  But  he  who  thinks  that 
"  Billy  "  Sunday  is  a  mere  reincarnation  of  Whitefield 
and  Evans  —  that  this  revival  is  only  a  duplication  on 
a  somewhat  larger  and  more  vulgar  scale  of  the  great 
revivals  of  the  days  gone  by  —  is  very  much  deceived. 
The  one  thing  that  is  most  remarkable  about  this 
movement,  to  my  mind,  is  not  the  personal  power  of 
Mr.  Sunday,  not  the  marvellous  machinery  of  organisa- 
tion which  he  has  perfected,  not  the  number  of  converts 
whom  he  brings  to  "  the  saw-dust  trail,"  but  the  ex- 
traordinary fact  that  here,  amid  all  these  traditional 
and  old-fashioned  surroundings,  there  is  being  struck  an 


16  RELIGION  FOR  TO-DAY 

insistent  note  which  has  never  been  sounded  before  in 
orthodox  revivals.  "  Billy  "  Sunday  thinks  that  he  is 
absolutely  faithful  to  "  the  old-time  religion."  Noth- 
ing would  shock  him  more  than  to  be  told  that  he  is 
himself  a  triumphant  representative  of  that  very  kind 
of  new  religion  which  he  attacks  with  such  bitterness 
and  hate.  He  uses  all  the  old  phrases,  plays  all  the  old 
tricks,  handles  all  the  old  paraphernalia.  But  at  the 
bottom  of  his  work,  all  the  same,  is  not  theology,  not 
conversion,  not  faith  in  Jesus,  not  acceptance  of  the 
cross,  but,  mirdbile  dictu!  the  moral  life.  The  one 
thing  that  "  Billy  "  Sunday  seems  to  be  genuinely  inter- 
ested in,  is  getting  people  to  be  decent.  He  spits  his 
venom  upon  those  who,  as  liberals,  identify  religion 
and  morality.  He  ridicules,  denounces  and  insults 
those  who  declare  that  conduct  and  character  are  the 
great  things.  He  asserts  with  unexampled  vividness 
of  phrase,  that  belief  in  "  Christ  and  him  crucified  "  is 
the  only  road  to  salvation.  But  all  this  is  mere  imita- 
tion of  ancient  models  —  mere  "  sound  and  fury  signi- 
fying nothing."  What  he  really  cares  about,  as  I  have 
said,  is  to  get  people  to  be  moral  —  to  be  good  parents 
of  their  children,  to  be  honest  citizens  in  the  community, 
to  be  clean  in  their  personal  life,  to  stop  drinking,  to 
avoid  sensuality,  to  "  cut  out  "  frivolity,  pleasure-seek- 
ing, and  selfish  indulgence,  to  pay  their  bills,  to  care 
for  their  homes,  to  destroy  the  liquor  traffic,  to  clean 
up  the  town,  to  be  decent  generally.  All  of  which 
means  that  the  Rev.  "  Billy "  Sunday  is  not  half  as 
orthodox  as  he  thinks  he  is !  In  spite  of  all  the  igno- 


THE  NEW  RELIGION  17 

ranee,  vulgarity,  cheap  tricks  and  wild  talk,  this  man  is 
a  leader  of  liberalism,  and  is  the  most  convincing  evi- 
dence of  which  I  know,  that  the  new  religion  will  mag- 
nify not  theology  but  the  moral  sentiment,  and  thus  be 
primarily  interested  not  in  what  a  man  believes  but  in 
what  he.  is ! 

III.  If  "  Billy  "  Sunday  is  the  most  brilliant  kind 
of  witness  to  this  second  characteristic  of  the  new 
religion,  he  must  be  described,  on  the  other  hand,  as 
the  poorest  kind  of  representative  of  a  third  character- 
istic, of  which  I  must  now  speak.  The  new  religion, 
as  I  have  said,  will  be  strictly  ethical  and  not 
theological  in  character;  but  it  will  emphasise  a 
type  of  moral  life,  which  has  never  played  any  great 
part  in  the  history  of  traditional  Christianity,  and 
which  has  no  convincing  example,  so  far  as  I  know,  out- 
side of  the  prophetic  tradition  of  ancient  Israel.  I 
refer  to  the  fact  that  the  religion  of  to-morrow  is  going 
to  be  a  religion  of  social,  as  contrasted  with  individual, 
morality.  The  foreshadowing  of  this  extraordinary 
development  from  the  idea  of  the  individual  soul  to  the 
idea  of  the  political,  industrial  and  economic  society  in 
which  the  soul  has  place,  is  seen  in  all  of  those  various 
social  reform  movements  of  our  time  which  constitute 
our  age,  as  it  has  been  so  often  called,  "  the  age  of  the 
social  question."  In  the  old  days,  all  stress  was  laid 
upon  the  individual  as  such.  The  principles  of  indi- 
vidual initiative,  individual  activity,  individual  respon- 
sibility, and  individual  salvation,  were  worked,  figur- 
atively speaking,  to  death.  "  Each  man  for  himself, 


18  RELIGION  FOR  TO-DAY 

and  the  devil  take  the  hindmost,'*  this  was  the  great 
axiom  of  life  in  education,  in  politics,  in  economics, 
and,  by  no  means  least  of  all,  in  religion.  "  Billy  " 
Sunday's  work  is  a  perfect  illustration  of  what  I  mean 
in  this  regard.  Here  he  is  as  old-fashioned  and  tra- 
ditional as  you  please.  His  appeal  is  fundamentally 
moral  and  not  theological,  as  I  have  ventured  to  point 
out  —  which  is  new ;  but  this  appeal  is  aimed  straight  at 
the  isolated  individual  —  which  is  as  old  as  the  per- 
nicious doctrine  of  future  retribution.  Never  once 
does  he  strike  the  social  note,  or  sound  the  social  chal- 
lenge. Save  yourself,  is  the  whole  burden  of  his  mes- 
sage! 

.  In  other  fields  of  activity,  however,  if  not  to  any 
great  extent  in  religion,  a  revolutionary  change  in  this 
regard  is  taking  place.  We  are  awakening  to-day  to 
the  full  import  of  the  great  principle,  laid  down  by  St. 
Paul,  so  many  centuries  ago,  that  "  no  man  liveth  unto 
himself."  No  man,  we  are  now  coming  gradually  to 
see,  can  be  saved  alone.  He  is  not  saved,  if  he  himself 
gains  a  position  of  security,  only  to  leave  behind  and 
abandon  to  their  fate  the  great  mass  of  men.  To  save 
ourselves  is  to  save  others.  The  process  of  service,  sac- 
rifice and  death  for  others'  sakes  is  itself  the  process 
of  salvation.  As  John  Greenleaf  Whittier  has  put  it  so 
effectively  in  his  familiar  couplet: 

"  Heaven's  gate  is  closed  to  him  who  comes  alone, 
Save  thou  a  soul  and  it  shall  save  thine  own." 

But  this  is  not  the  whole  of  our  discovery,  by  any 


THE  NEW  RELIGION  19 

means.  Beyond  this,  and  infinitely  more  important,  is 
the  discovery  that  men  cannot  be  saved  as  individuals, 
apart  from  the  material  and  moral  conditions  of  the 
environment  in  which  they  live.  To  save  a  slum  popu- 
lation from  physical  degeneration,  moral  corruption 
and  spiritual  atrophy,  we  must  not  merely  educate  and 
redeem  the  individual  men  and  women,  but  first  and 
foremost,  wipe  out  the  slum.  To  save  the  little  children 
who  crowd  our  juvenile  courts,  we  must  not  merely 
punish,  teach  and  inspire  the  separate  boys  and  girls, 
but  we  must  change  their  gutters  into  plaj'grounds, 
their  tenement  abodes  into  homes  of  light,  their  scanty 
food  into  abundant  nourishment,  their  wretched  pleas- 
ures into  wholesome  recreation.  To  save  our  drunk- 
ards, prostitutes  and  gunmen,  we  must  not  so  much 
rear  mission-houses,  rescue  stations  and  reformatories, 
as  smash  the  saloons,  abolish  cruel  and  indecent  condi- 
tions of  labour,  establish  the  minimum  wage,  solve  the 
vexed  problem  of  unemployment,  wipe  out  the  curse  of 
poverty.  Already  we  are  convinced  that  the  physical 
diseases  of  our  people  are  due  almost  exclusively  to  bad 
environment  —  that  such  ills  as  tuberculosis,  typhoid 
fever,  and  infant  mortality,  for  example,  can  never  be 
conquered  until  the  multitudes  live  and  labour  under 
conditions  which  are  at  least  human.  And  in  the  same 
way  are  we  beginning  to  learn  that  the  moral  ills  of  our 
people  are  rooted  in  the  same  polluted  soil  of  environ- 
ment. Religion,  like  education,  is  no  longer  blind  to 
the  moral  and  spiritual  results  of  social  maladjust- 
ment, industrial  oppression,  political  injustice.  Which 


20  RELIGION  FOR  TO-DAY 

means  that  the  religion  of  to-morrow,  like  the  religion 
of  to-day  in  a  few  scattered  churches  of  the  land,  will 
be  a  religion  of  social  change.  The  new  religion  will 
concern  itself  not  with  theological  error,  or  ecclesias- 
tical non-conformity,  or  even  moral  delinquency,  but 
with  the  crying  evils  of  social  disorganisation  which 
fill  our  hospitals  with  the  sick,  our  asylums  with  the 
feeble-minded  and  insane,  our  streets  and  tenements 
with  the  poor,  our  prisons  and  reformatories  with  the 
vicious  and  depraved.  It  will  take  up  the  fight  against 
poverty,  bad  conditions  of  labour,  low  wages  and  long 
hours,  indecent  tenements  and  noisome  slums,  commer- 
cialised vice,  rotten  politics,  selfish  business,  inequitable 
taxation,  war.  It  will  concern  itself  not  so  much  with 
the  individual,  as  with  the  social  environment  which  has 
so  largely  made  the  individual  what  he  actually  is.  It 
will  centre  attention  not  so  much  upon  fitting  men  for 
the  life  beyond  the  grave,  as  upon  fitting  the  life  that  is 
upon  this  side  of  the  grave  for  the  decent  happiness 
and  welfare  of  humanity.  It  will  devote  itself  not  so 
much  to  the  kin'gdom  of  heaven  that  may  some  day  be 
discovered  far  off  in  the  distant  skies,  as  to  the  kingdom 
of  heaven  that  may  any  day  be  actually  established 
right  here  and  now  upon  the  earth.  Now  is  the  day  of 
the  Lord!  Here  is,  or  may  be,  holy  ground!  The 
kingdom  of  heaven  is  at  hand!  This  is  the  message 
of  this  new  socialised  religion  of  to-morrow  which,  in 
the  space  of  a  single  generation,  I  believe,  is  destined  so 
largely  to  displace  the  old  individualised  religion  of  to- 
day and  yesterday.  All  of  which  means  that,  in  God's 


THE  NEW  RELIGION  21 

good  time,  will  be  fulfilled  the  immortal  prayer  of  Jesus 
—  "  Thy  kingdom  come,  thy  will  be  done,  on  earth  as   .  ' 
it  is  in  heaven !  " 

IV.  This  brings  me  directly  to  the  last  point  in 
regard  to  the  new  religion.  If  this  religion  is  to 
assume,  to  any  very  great  extent,  the  characteristics 
which  I  have  described,  it  is  evident,  is  it  not,  that  most 
of  those  features  which  have  led  to  so  many,  if  not  all, 
of  the  religious  disputations  of  the  past,  will  disappear? 
The  history  of  religion,  as  we  unfortunately  know  all 
too  well,  is  one  long  and  almost  uninterrupted  story  of 
controversy,  conflict,  persecution  and  warfare.  The 
"  one  holy  church,"  which  every  seer  has  beheld  "  in 
rapt  vision,"  has  forever  split  itself  up  into  hundreds  of 
factions,  sects,  denominations,  each  one  of  which  has 
been  anathema  to  every  other.  People  have  been  unable 
to  unite  upon  the  articles  of  a  creed,  the  order  of  a 
ritual,  or  the  character  of  a  vestment.  They  have  been 
unable  to  tell,  for  example,  whether  God  the  Son  is 
correctly  described  as  homoousion,  or  homoiousion. 
They  have  been  unable  to  agree  as  to  whether  the  bread 
and  wine  of  the  Lord's  Supper  is  the  actual  body  and 
blood  of  Christ,  or  is  only  the  symbol  of  these  realities. 
They  have  failed  utterly  to  come  to  an  understanding 
upon  the  question  as  to  whether  there  should  be  three 
or  four  buttons  on  a  certain  ecclesiastical  garment,  or 
no  buttons  at  all.  And  since  these  matters  are  of  great 
importance,  from  the  theological  point  of  view  at  least, 
men  have  disputed,  and  fought,  and  slain.  With  the 
result  pointed  out  by  John  Morley,  in  his  biography 


RELIGION  FOR  TO-DAY 

of  Voltaire,  that  "  more  human  blood  has  been  violently 
shed  (in  the  cause  of  religion)  than  in  any  other  cause 
whatsoever." 

Now  in  the  new  religion  all  these  occasions  of  theo- 
logical wrangling  and  discussion  will  have  no  place.  In 
their  stead  will  come,  as  we  have  seen,  the  interests  of 
science,  the  standards  of  morality,  and  the  ideals  of 
social  change.  All  the  differing  forms  of  the  new 
religion  will  be  actuated  by  a  common  spirit,  impelled 
by  a  common  interest,  and  directed  to  a  common  end. 
Which  means  —  paradoxical  as  it  may  appear  —  that 
there  will  be  no  differing  forms  of  this  new  religion! 
Religions,  which  have  always  been  so  "  many,"  will 
slowly  become  merged  into  that  "  one  "  religion,  which 
has  ever  been  so  apparent  in  essence  but  never  yet  has 
appeared  in  outward  form.  The  religion  of  to-morrow, 
in  other  words,  will  be  a  universal  religion.  Men  will 
differ  in  opinion  and  outlook,  as  they  have  always  dif- 
fered. Different  nationalities  and  races  will  have  their 
distinctive  languages  and  ceremonials  of  worship.  Dif- 
ferent philosophies  will  develop  distinctive  interpreta- 
tions of  moral  truth  and  social  good.  Prophets,  new 
and  old,  will  have  their  separate  groups  of  followers, 
and  build  their  separate  churches.  But  sects  as  such 
will  be  unknown;  controversies,  save  for  the  love  of 
truth,  will  disappear;  and  religious  warfare,  that  last 
infamy  of  human  ignorance  and  folly,  will  become  noth- 
ing but  a  dreadful  memory  of  ancient  and  less  lovely 
days.  Men  will  behold,  with  ever  more  clearness,  the 
one  God  who  is  in  all  and  through  all  and  over  all. 


THE  NEW  RELIGION  23 

They  will  feel,  with  ever  greater  intensity,  the  spiritual 
kinship  that  binds  them  together  into  one  great  family 
of  this  one  God.  They  will  hail  together  and  work 
together  for  the  coming  of  that  kingdom  of  God  in 
which  men  "  from  the  east  and  from  the  west,  from  the 
north  and  from  the  south,"  shall  sit  down  together  as 
brothers  and  comrades.  Every  name  of  God  will  be 
welcome  to  our  ears,  every  prayer  will  express  our 
aspirations,  every  prophet  will  be  our  leader,  every 
altar  will  be  our  home.  Religion  will  at  last  be  one  as 
God  is  one,  as  the  universe  is  one,  as  the  heart  of  man  is 
one.  "  We  have  grown  up  under  different  influences," 
says  William  Ellery  Channing.  "We  have  different 
names.  .  .  .  Diversities  of  opinion  incline  us  to  wor- 
ship under  different  roofs,  or  diversities  of  taste  or 
habits,  to  worship  with  different  forms.  But  if  we 
purpose  solemnly  to  do  God's  will,  we  are  one  church, 
and  nothing  can  divide  us." 

Such,  so  far  as  I  can  foresee  it,  will  be  the  new 
religion.  It  will  be  first  of  all  a  religion  of  science — • 
which  means  a  religion  cleansed  of  superstition,  freed 
from  authority,  and  redeemed  from  intolerance!  Sec- 
ondly, it  will  be  a  religion  not  of  theology  but  of 
morality  —  which  means  a  religion  indifferent  to  creeds 
and  rituals,  and  supremely  interested  in  character. 
Thirdly,  it  will  be  a  socialised  religion  —  which  means 
a  religion  dedicated  not  to  the  salvation  of  the  indi- 
vidual in  the  world  to  come,  but  to  the  salvation  of  the 
individual  in  the  world  that  now  isfby  the  transforma- 
tion of  this  world  from  iniquity  into  righteousness. 


24  RELIGION  FOR  TO-DAY 

And  lastly,  it  will  be  a  universal  religion  —  which 
means  a  religion  of  one  humanity,  united  before  one 
altar,  in  the  worship  of  one  God. 

I  have  called  this  the  new  religion!  In  the  highest 
and  truest  sense  it  is  the  old  religion  also,  for  it  is  this 
religion  which  all  good  men  have  taught  and  practised 
since  first  the  world  began.  This  is  the  one  religion 
about  which  I  had  so  much  to  say  at  the  beginning  of 
this  address.  It  is  new  to-day  —  or  to-morrow !  — 
only  as  it  is  at  last  coming  to  its  own  after  long, 
long  centuries  of  obscurity,  misunderstanding  and 
abuse.  One  of  the  greatest  of  all  religious  leaders, 
Theodore  Parker,  who  taught  this  new  religion  "  pure 
and  undefiled,"  summed  up  the  whole  problem  when  he 
traced  his  teachings  straight  back  to  the  "prophet  souls 
of  all  the  years,"  and  then,  in  his  last  days,  declared, 
"  The  religion  I  preach  will  be  the  religion  of  enlight- 
ened men  for  the  next  thousand  years !  " 


STATEMENTS  OF  PRINCIPLE 


TRUTH,  NOT  TRADITION 

IN  entering  upon  a  discussion  of  the  principles  of  the 
new  religion  of  our  day,  there  are  two  roads  which  may 
be  followed.  On  the  one  hand,  we  may  consider  the 
specific  doctrines  which  are  characteristic  of  this  re- 
ligion —  its  idea  of  God,  its  conception  of  man,  its 
hope  of  immortality.  In  other  words,  we  may  define 
the  theology  of  the  new  religion.  On  the  other  hand, 
we  may  consider  the  principles  of  this  religion  —  the 
ethical  foundations  upon  which  it  is  reared  and  the  spir- 
itual heights  to  which  it  aspires.  Without  discussing 
any  of  its  particular  doctrines,  we  may  consider  simply 
those  general  ideas  of  thought  and  life  of  which  these 
doctrines  are  the  outcome  and  expression.  We  may 
inquire,  that  is,  not  how  the  new  religion  differs  from 
the  old  in  the  articles  of  its  creed,  but  how  it  differs 
from  the  old  in  its  whole  attitude  and  spirit. 

Now  it  is  this  second  road  which  I  propose  to  follow 
in  this  address ;  and  the  first  step  upon  this  road  I  find 
to  be  the  affirmation  that  the  new  religion,  as  con- 
trasted with  the  old,  is  a  religion  of  truth,  and  not  of 
tradition  —  a  contrast  which  has  a  deeper  and  more 
permanent  significance  than  we  commonly  understand. 
We  are  living  in  an  age  which  has  come  to  appreciate 
the  supreme  value  of  truth,  and  which  is  dominated 

therefore  by  no  passion  stronger  than  the  passion  to 

27 


28  RELIGION  FOR  TO-DAY 

find  the  truth.  We  understand  to-day  that  the  patient, 
courageous,  and  unceasing  search  for  truth  is  one  of 
the  most  inspiring  achievements  in  the  history  of  man- 
kind, and  that  without  this  search,  we  should  still  be 
living  as  barbarians  in  an  age  of  barbarism.  The  ideal 
of  truth,  in  other  words,  has  become  in  our  time  a 
common-place,  and  the  path  to  truth  a  smooth  and 
well-travelled  road.  Every  man  to-day  claims  to  be  a 
lover  of  the  truth,  and  manifests,  to  some  extent  at 
least,  what  Mr.  Lecky  calls  "  the  essential  character- 
istics of  the  spirit  of  the  truth."  He  will  "  pause," 
that  is,  "  before  accepting  any  doubtful  assertion,  he 
will  carefully  balance  opposing  arguments,  he  will  probe 
every  anecdote  with  scrupulous  care,  he  will  endeavour 
to  divest  himself  of  every  prejudice,  he  will  cautiously 
abstain  from  attributing  to  probabilities  the  authority 
of  certainties."  All  this  he  will  do,  because  truth  is 
now  everywhere  triumphant  —  so  triumphant,  that  we 
find  it  difficult  to  realise  that  truth  was  one  of  the  last 
ideals  to  gain  the  allegiance  of  the  human  soul,  that  the 
truth-seeker  has  been  regarded  in  nearly  every  age  as 
the  enemy  and  not  the  friend  of  man,  and  that  the 
search  for  truth  until  very  recent  times  has  never  been 
conducted  by  the  race  as  a  whole,  but  only  by  those  few 
great  martyr-heroes  who  have  not  been  afraid  to  die 
in  order  that  humanity  might  live.  Indeed,  the  love  of 
truth  is  so  new  and  rare  a  thing,  that  it  is  not  too  much 
to  say  that  there  have  been  only  two  periods  in  the  his- 
tory of  the  western  world  when  it  really  found  any  very 
general  recognition. 


TRUTH,  NOT  TRADITION  29 

In  the  first  place,  there  is  that  marvellous  epoch  of 
enlightenment  and  culture,  which  we  find  in  the  Athens 
of  the  fifth  century  before  Christ.  Here  in  a  period 
scarcely  two  generations  long,  we  find  a  group  of  intel- 
lectual giants  who  stand  unrivalled  in  later  ages  of 
human  history,  and  who  are  the  dominating  figures  in  a 
period  pre-eminently  distinguished  for  its  investigations 
and  discoveries  of  truth.  It  was  the  age  of  Protagoras 
and  the  Sophists,  who  asked  in  reverence,  what  Pontius 
Pilate  is  regarded  to  have  asked  in  jest,  *'  What  is 
truth?  "  It  was  the  age  of  Anaxagoras,  who  boldly 
declared  that  the  sun  was  not  the  golden  chariot  of  the 
god  of  day,  but  only  a  red-hot  stone,  and  who  was  ban- 
ished from  Attica  for  the  temerity  of  his  utterance.  It 
was  the  age  of  Hippocrates,  who  took  the  first  steps  in 
scientific  medicine.  It  was  the  age  of  Socrates,  the 
apostle  of  knowledge;  of  Plato,  the  philosopher  of 
idealism;  and  of  Aristotle,  first  to  study  scientfically 
the  phenomena  of  the  natural  world.  It  was  an  age 
of  such  unexampled  intellectual  activity  and  achieve- 
ment, that  the  history  of  practically  every  branch  of 
human  learning  has  its  beginning  with  these  ancient 
Greeks.  For  the  first  time  in  the  history  of  our  race, 
we  find  the  pursuit  of  truth  a  passion,  and  loyalty 
to  truth  a  confessed  religion. 

The  second  great  period  of  enlightenment  was  that 
which  opened  in  the  early  days  of  the  fifteenth  century, 
and  which  is  fittingly  described  as  the  period  of  the 
Renaissance  or  "  Revival  of  Learning."  It  is  inter- 
esting to  notice  that  this  period  of  renewed  search  for 


30  RELIGION  FOR  TO-DAY 

truth  was  immediately  dependent  upon  that  period  of 
Athenian  glory,  which  I  have  just  described.  For 
twelve  centuries  or  more,  Europe,  like  the  sleeping 
beauty  in  the  wood,  had  been  slumbering  under  the 
paralysing  spells  of  mediaevalism.  Then  there  came, 
like  the  prince  in  the  fairy-tale,  partly  from  the  Jews, 
partly  from  the  Mohammedans,  and  partly  from  the 
Grecian  fugitives  from  the  east,  the  restoration  of  the 
writings  of  Plato  and  Aristotle  which  the  world  of 
Christendom  had  totally  forgotten  during  the  period 
of  the  Dark  Ages.  And  lo !  in  an  instant,  the  mind  of 
Europe  was  awake.  And  what  an  age  of  revival  and 
even  revolution  it  was!  It  was  the  age  which  saw 
Marco  Polo  travel  east  into  Asia,  Columbus  sail  west 
to  America,  and  Vasco  da  Gama  sail  south  around  the 
continent  of  Africa.  It  was  the  age  which  saw  Coper- 
nicus and  Galileo  and  Kepler  study  the  movements  of 
the  heavenly  bodies,  and  overthrow  the  fallacies  of  the 
Ptolemaic  theory  of  the  universe.  It  was  the  age  which 
saw  Gassendi,  by  his  investigation  of  atoms,  lay  the 
foundation  of  chemistry ;  and  Harvey,  by  his  discovery 
of  the  circulation  of  the  blood,  lay  the  foundation  of 
physiology.  It  was  the  age  which  saw  the  beginnings 
of  modern  philosophy  in  the  writings  of  Descartes,  and 
the  resurrection  of  science  in  the  Novum  Organum 
of  Bacon.  It  was  the  age  which  saw  the  emancipation 
of  scholarship  in  the  rebirth  of  such  universities  as 
those  of  Paris  and  Oxford,  and  in  the  persons  of  such 
scholars  as  Colet,  Erasmus,  and  Thomas  More.  Above 
all,  it  was  the  age  which  witnessed  the  cataclysm  of  the 


TRUTH,  NOT  TRADITION  31 

Reformation,  which  swept  through  the  realms  of  Cathol- 
icism like  a  convulsive  earthquake,  shattering  the  power 
of  the  ecclesiastical  hierarchy  in  England,  Holland, 
Germany,  and  Switzerland,  and  making  possible  the 
great  movement  of  Protestantism.  It  was  the  age  of 
scepticism  and  doubt  and  fresh  inquiry.  All  the  ac- 
cepted knowledge  of  the  world  was  placed  beneath  the 
microscope  of  investigation,  and  pitilessly  tested  as  to  its 
validity.  Traditions  were  thrown  to  the  winds,  dogmas 
were  flouted  and  scorned,  nothing  was  accepted  which 
could  not  pass  the  examination  of  the  reason.  Men 
were  seeking  for  the  truth,  the  whole  truth,  and  noth- 
ing but  the  truth.  For  the  first  time  since  the  days  of 
Periclean  Athens,  men  were  looking  about  them,  star- 
ing the  world  in  the  face,  putting  every  doctrine  on  trial 
for  its  life,  subjecting  every  theory  to  merciless  scru- 
tiny and  torture,  thinking  in  all  things  for  themselves. 
And  instead  of  holding  fast  to  the  old  things  simply 
because  they  were  old  and  had  been  accepted  by  the 
fathers,  they  began  to  try  all  things,  and  hold  fast  only 
to  those  which  were  good.  The  Renaissance  was  in 
truth  a  rebirth.  Nay  more !  —  it  was  the  resurrection 
of  the  human  reason,  which  had  its  birth,  we  may  say, 
in  the  age  of  Pericles,  and  which  had  met  its  crucifixion 
in  the  dark  days  of  Rome  and  the  Middle  Ages. 

This  second  period  of  enlightenment,  which  had  its 
dawning  in  the  fourteenth  century,  so  far  from  reaching 
its  close,  as  did  the  corresponding  period  of  earlier 
times,  within  the  space  of  a  few  generations,  is  just  now 
in  the  flood-tide  of  its  glory.  The  search  for  truth, 


32  RELIGION  FOR  TO-DAY 

which  the  leaders  of  the  Renaissance  set  on  foot  in  their 
times  of  storm  and  stress,  has  been  continued  unremit- 
tingly from  their  day  to  our  own,  and  is  being  prose- 
cuted more  faithfully  to-day  than  ever  before.  The 
nineteenth  century  was  pre-eminently  a  century  of 
truth-seeking.  Every  possible  sphere  of  human  knowl- 
edge has  been  investigated  during  the  last  one  hundred 
years,  to  its  remotest  part,  and  the  pages  of  learning 
written  all  anew.  And  not  only  have  a  myriad  new 
facts  been  added  to  our  store  of  information,  not  only 
have  new  theories  of  the  universe  and  human  life  been 
established,  but  what  is  infinitely  more  important,  the 
validity  of  truth  and  the  obligation  of  finding  truth 
have  been  forever  impressed  upon  humanity.  Never 
again  can  the  love  of  truth  be  lost ;  never  again  can  the 
search  for  truth  be  abandoned !  Humanity  is  now  com- 
mitted to  this  goal  as  to  the  noblest  of  all  ideals,  and  it 
will  march  on  and  on,  and  ever  on,  until  the  deepest 
depths  have  been  sounded,  the  highest  pinnacles  scaled, 
and  the  farthest  bounds  attained.  Forever  now  shall 
humanity  cry  out, 

"  O  star  of  truth,  down-shining, 
Lead  on,  I'll  follow  thee." 

Whatever  may  have  been  the  struggle  of  truth,  there- 
fore, in  the  past,  to  gain  a  place  in  the  human  heart, 
and  however  prolonged  and  dark  may  have  been  that 
period  between  the  first  era  of  intellectual  illumination 
and  the  second,  there  is  no  longer  any  doubt  as  to  the 
absolute  character  of  her  victory.  Truth  as  an  ideal 


TRUTH,  NOT  TRADITION  33 

is  now  established  so  that  it  shall  never  pass  away. 
The  torch  of  knowledge  has  been  kindled  with  so  mighty  .. 
a  flame  that  it  can  never  again  be  extinguished.  That 
element,  without  which  nothing  henceforth  can  hope  to 
endure  for  a  single  instant,  is  conformity  to  truth !  — 
and  this  is  -as  true  of  religion  as  of  everything  else.  A 
religion  which  can  hold  the  confidence  of  the  modern 
man  must  be  a  religion  which  is  founded  upon  the  basis 
of  truth  and  is  inspired  throughout  by  the  love  of  truth. 
Indeed,  there  is  many  a  man  to-day  who  has  no  religion 
other  than  his  absolute  devotion  to  the  truth,  and  who 
would  therefore  refuse  to  recognise  anything  as  a 
religion  which  did  not  sanctify  this  devotion  with  its 
blessing.  And  yet  it  is  just  this  devotion  to  the  truth 
—  this  "  earnestness  of  inquiry "  which  Mr.  Lecky 
describes  as  "  the  essential  characteristic  of  the  love  of 
truth  "  —  which  organised  Christianity  has  not  only 
refused  to  bless,  but  has  actually  cursed  with  the  most 
awful  anathemas  which  she  could  frame. 

For  the  relentless  truth-seeker,  who  cares  nothing 
about  the  dogmas  and  traditions  of  yesterday,  and  con- 
cerns himself  only  with  what  his  reasoning  faculties  are 
telling  him  about  the  universe  and  human  life  to-day, 
the  Christian  church  has  no  place  whatsoever.  Now, 
as  always  in  the  past,  the  church  banishes  from  her 
altars  the  man  who  asks  a  question,  raises  a  doubt,  or 
starts  an  investigation.  What  could  be  more  signifi- 
cant than  the  fact  that  the  Dark  Ages,  when  learning 
was  at  its  lowest  ebb  and  the  light  of  reason  was  burn- 
ing with  the  feeblest  of  flames,  when  all  the  splendid 


34  RELIGION  FOR  TO-DAY 

knowledge  of  the  pagan  world  was  lost  and  man  knew 
less  and  cared  less  about  the  world  in  which  he  was  liv- 
ing than  at  any  other  time  perhaps  in  human  history, 
when  mankind  was  the  unresisting  victim  of  all  manner 
of  fears  and  superstitions,  were  coincident  with  that 
period  of  Christian  history  when  the  church  was  every- 
where supreme,  when  her  cardinals  dominated  the  court 
of  every  king  and  her  priests  occupied  the  teaching 
chairs  in  every  school  and  university?  What  could  be 
more  impressive  than  this  fact,  unless  it  be  the  further 
fact  that  every  forward  step  which  has  been  taken  since 
the  period  of  the  Renaissance  has  been  taken  in  spite  of 
the  church's  bitter  opposition,  and  has  been  successfully 
carried  through  in  the  face  of  her  cruel  and  relentless 
persecution?  Read  such  a  book  as  Dr.  Andrew  D. 
White's  History  of  the  Warfare  Between  Science  and 
Theology,  and  see  how  the  Christian  church  has  been 
fighting  one  losing  battle  after  another  in  every  field 
of  learning,  during  the  past  three  hundred  years,  and 
has  been  driven  from  one  line  of  entrenchments,  only  to 
retreat  and  give  battle  all  over  again  in  the  next. 
Nothing  is  more  melancholy  than  the  fact  that  nearly 
all  the  great  scholars  of  the  sixteenth,  seventeenth, 
eighteenth,  and  nineteenth  centuries  were  able  to  find 
no  place  within  the  pale  of  Christianity,  and  therefore 
did  their  immortal  work  outside  instead  of  inside  the 
church.  Take  simply  the  more  familiar  names  of  the 
great  leaders  of  the  world's  thought  in  the  last  one 
hundred  years  —  such  men  as  Darwin,  Huxley,  Tyn- 
dall,  Spencer,  Mill,  Renan,  Lyell,  Wallace,  Herschel, 


TRUTH,  NOT  TRADITION  35 

Hooker,  to  name  only  a  few  —  and  we  find  that  almost 
without  exception  these  illustrious  friends  of  humanity, 
loyal  seekers  for  the  truth,  devoted  servants  of  God, 
were  the  outcasts  of  the  Christian  world.  Just  think 
of  such  a  fact  as  that  to  which  Dr.  Moncure  D.  Conway 
calls  attention  in  his  Autobiography,  that  "  the  three 
men  who  chiefly  moulded  the  thought  of  their  gener- 
ation in  England  and  America  were  all  trained  for  the 
pulpit  —  Darwin,  Carlyle,  and  Emerson ;  and  they  were 
all  shut  out  of  it  by  their  intellectual  honesty  and  the 
inability  of  the  churches  to  recognise  the  superiority 
of  a  great  living  oracle  to  the  creeds  of  defunct  crania." 
What  wonder,  in  the  face  of  such  facts  as  these,  that 
there  have  been  men  who  have  soberly  declared  that 
Christianity  has  been  more  of  a  curse  than  a  blessing  to 
the  human  race,  and  that  if  every  church  could  be  closed 
to-day  and  every  pulpit  left  forever  empty,  humanity 
would  gain  immeasurably  more  than  she  would  lose ! 

Indeed,  from  the  standpoint  of  the  present  age, 
which  understands  and  appreciates  the  essential 
validity  of  truth,  nothing  is  more  tragic  than  this  phase 
of  Christian  history ;  and  nothing  is  more  natural  than 
the  most  unsparing  condemnation  of  the  church  for  her 
unwavering  attitude  of  hostility.  And  yet,  to  the 
advocate  of  the  church,  nothing  could  be  more  unjust 
than  such  a  condemnation  as  this.  The  church,  you 
say,  the  enemy  of  truth  and  the  persecutor  of  truth- 
seekers  ?  Not  at  all !  The  church,  if  she  is  hostile  to 
anything,  is  hostile  only  to  error;  and  if  she  has  perse- 
cuted anybody,  has  persecuted  only  those  who  have 


36  RELIGION  FOR  TO-DAY 

taught  error  and  thus  have  sought  to  lead  the  minds  of 
men  astray.  The  truth?  Why,  the  church  has  the 
truth  in  her  own  especial  keeping,  and  has  had  it  there 
for  hundreds  of  years !  The  truth  is  already  known  in 
all  its  fulness  through  the  special  revelation  of  God 
himself  to  the  patriarchs  and  prophets  and  apostles  of 
old ;  and  therefore  is  all  this  so-called  search  for  truth 
in  our  day  only  so  much  unbelief,  which  is  to  be  con- 
demned as  dangerous  to  the  welfare  of  the  human  soul. 
The  church,  in  other  words,  has  always  asserted  just 
what  she  asserts  to-day,  that  God  has  revealed  truth 
once  and  for  all,  that  this  truth  is  preserved  in  what  she 
calls  her  sacred  tradition,  and  that  no  further  revela- 
tion is  therefore  necessary  or  to  be  expected.  Any- 
thing in  the  researches  of  the  scientists  and  philoso- 
phers, which  is  in  contradiction  to  the  tradition  of  the 
church,  is  to  be  regarded  not  as  truth  merely  because  it 
is  new,  but,  for  that  very  reason,  if  for  no  other,  is  to 
be  regarded  as  error.  The  church,  in  a  word,  simply 
points  to  her  tradition,  as  this  tradition  is  embodied  in 
scriptures  and  in  creeds,  asserts  that  all  truth  is  to  be 
found  there  and  nowhere  else,  and  refuses  to  recognise 
the  epoch-making  achievements  of  the  last  three  hun- 
dred years  as  anything  more  than  so  many  grievous 
mistakes,  and  "  the  passion  of  truth-seeking,"  which  has 
been  responsible  for  these  achievements,  as  anything 
more  than  envy  and  deceit. 

Here,  now,  between  the  position  of  the  church  and 
that  of  the  world  at  large,  do  we  find  the  sharpest  pos- 
sible contradiction;  and  yet  both  positions  are  deter- 


TRUTH,  NOT  TRADITION  37 

mined  by  allegiance  to  what  is  called  the  truth.  Here  / 
is  the  church  offering  her  tradition  as  true,  and  here  is 
the  world  offering  its  modern  scientific  discoveries  as 
true.  Here  is  the  church  declaring  that  truth  was  all 
revealed  centuries  ago  by  a  supernatural  process  of 
revelation,  and  here  is  the  world  declaring  that  truth  is 
being  revealed  here  and  now  by  the  wholly  natural 
process  of  investigation  and  research.  Here  is  the 
church  describing  the  disciple  of  truth  as  one  who  asks 
no  questions,  raises  no  doubts,  and  accepts  obediently 
what  is  given  him  from  the  past,  and  here  is  the  world 
describing  the  disciple  of  truth  as  one  who  doubts 
everything  which  is  unsupported  by  trustworthy  evi- 
dence, who .  accepts  nothing  which  does  not  commend 
itself  to  his  reason,  who  has  little  reverence  for  preju- 
dice or  tradition,  and  above  all,  is  characterised  by  the 
spirit  of  earnest  and  free  inquiry.  Here  is  the  most 
radical  kind  of  disagreement  —  disagreement  so  radi- 
cal that  the  church  has  been  forced  to  declare  war  upon 
the  world,  and  the  world  upon  the  church,  and  both  in 
the  name  of  truth!  Each  takes  up  its  arms  and  shouts 
that  it  comes  "  to  bear  witness  to  the  truth ! "  And 
what  wonder  is  it,  in  the  face  of  this  contention,  that 
we  find  the  question  of  "jesting  Pilate"  springing  to  . 
our  lips  —  "  What  is  truth?  " 

Now  in  seeking  to  answer  this  question,  and  thus  to 
determine  the  age-long  battle  between  science  and 
theology,  we  find  that  there  are  just  two  possible  ways 
out  of  our  difficulty,  and  that  each  involves  an  undis- 
guised affirmation  of  faith  in  the  reality  of  something 


38  RELIGION  FOR  TO-DAY 

which  cannot  by  any  possibility  be  demonstrated.  In 
other  words,  as  a  pure  act  of  faith,  we  must  accept  the 
contention  of  the  church,  or  we  must  accept  the  conten- 
tion of  the  scientific  world.  We  cannot  accept  both, 
nor  can  we  find  any  middle  ground  between  them. 

In  the  one  case,  we  will  do  what  Mr.  Gosse  did,  when 
he  found  himself  faced  by  this  dilemma.  Readers  of 
Mr.  Edmund  Gosse's  remarkable  book,  entitled  Father 
and  Son,  will  remember  the  problem  by  which  the  elder 
Gosse  found  himself  confronted.  On  the  one  hand,  this 
man  was  an  ardent  Calvinist,  a  devoted  student  of 
Christian  tradition,  and  an  unquestioning  believer  in  all 
the  familiar  doctrines  of  the  most  extreme  type  of 
orthodox  Protestantism.  On  the  other  hand,  Mr. 
Gosse  was  an  able  and  well-trained  geologist,  who  had 
for  years  conducted  original  investigations  of  the  earth 
strata  on  the  western  coast  of  England,  and  who  was 
familiar  with  all  the  revolutionary  discoveries  in  the 
geological  field  of  Sir  Charles  Lyell  and  his  contem- 
poraries. On  the  one  hand,  as  he  read  the  book  of 
Genesis,  every  word  of  which  he  believed  to  be  directly 
inspired  by  God,  he  was  taught  that  all  things  were 
created  by  the  Almighty  within  a  period  of  six  days,  at 
a  time  not  more  than  six  thousand  years  ago.  On  the 
other  hand,  as  he  read  Lyell's  Principles  of  Geology  and 
studied  the  earth  formations  for  himself,  he  was 
taught  that  the  earth  had  been  in  existence  for  unnum- 
bered millions  of  years,  and  had  reached  its  present 
state  through  a  process  of  evolution,  almost  every  step 
of  which  was  recorded  in  the  formation  of  the  soil. 


TRUTH,  NOT  TRADITION  S9 

Now,  here,  right  in  Gosse's  own  life,  was  the  stupen-: 
dous  contradiction  between  tradition  and  science,  of 
which  I  have  spoken;  and  in  the  apparent  confusion, 
there  was  only  one  thing1  which  he  believed  to  be  finally 
and  forever  true  —  namely  the  Genesis  statement,  that 
"  in  six  days  Jehovah  made  heaven  and  earth,  the  sea, 
and  all  that  in  them  is."  This  must  be  true,  regard- 
less of  everything  else !  But,  if  this  be  the  case,  what 
about  the  evidences  in  the  soil  of  progressive  develop- 
ment through  millions  of  years?  What  about  the  gla- 
cial fissures  and  scratches  on  the  cliifs,  the  piles  of  lava 
from  extinct  volcanoes,  the  fossils  of  every  sort  in  every 
part  of  the  earth,  the  foot-tracks  of  birds  and  reptiles 
moulded  in  the  rocks,  the  skeletons  of  mammoths  and 
dinosaurs  and  other  prehistoric  creatures?  What  do 
all  these  things  mean?  Nothing,  said  Mr.  Gosse! 
They  can  mean  nothing  in  the  face  of  "  the  one  clear 
and  undisputed  witness  on  the  opposite  side  "  —  the 
first  chapter  of  Genesis.  All  these  geological  remains 
are  simply  "  appearances,"  and  as  such  they  were 
brought  into  being,  just  as  they  stand  to-day,  during 
the  six  days  of  creation,  and  are  to  be  taken  as  having 
no  significance  whatever.  If  we  want  to  read  into  them 
any  such  story  of  evolution  as  they  seem  to  teach,  why 
we  do  this  at  our  own  risk.  {  God  has  told  us  that  he 
made  the  world  in  a  week's  time  some  six  thousand  years 
ago,  and  nothing  that  the  earth  contains,  or  seems  to 
contain,  can  be  accepted  as  a  refutation  of  that  state- 
ment, which  embodies  the  whole  of  truth.  I 

It  is  seldom  that  we  find  the  conflict  between  science 


40  RELIGION  FOR  TO-DAY 

and  theology  so  completely  embodied  in  a  single  life  as 
in  the  case  of  Mr.  Gosse ;  and  here,  in  his  career,  do  we 
have  a  perfect  illustration  of  one  way  out  of  the  diffi- 
culty which  is  before  us.  Mr.  Gosse  had  implicit  faith 
in  the  tradition  of  the  church  as  the  test  of  truth,  and 
believed  that  this  one  witness  counter-balanced  every- 
thing which  might  be  brought  forward  upon  the  other 
side.  If  any  fact  in  nature  —  a  scratch  upon  a  cliff 
or  a  buried  fossil  —  contradicted  the  church's  tradi- 
tion, then  the  fact  and  not  the  tradition  was  to  be 
rejected. 

But  always  have  there  been  men  who  have  found  it 
impossible  to  follow  this  easy  way  out  of  the  contradic- 
tion between  science  and  theology.  Such  a  man  was 
Thomas  Huxley.  Like  Gosse,  he  was  familiar  with  the 
tradition  of  the  church ;  like  Gosse,  he  was  familiar  with 
the  wonderful  discoveries  of  modern  science ;  but  unlike 
Gosse,  he  could  not  make  himself  believe  that  these 
geological  and  biological  remains  were  merely  "  appear- 
ances," signifying  nothing.  He  could  not  believe,  for 
example,  when  the  tracks  of  birds  and  reptiles  were 
found  in  the  soil,  when  fossilised  bones  were  discovered 
in  certain  caves  bearing  the  very  marks  of  hyenas' 
teeth,  when  even  the  skeleton  of  a  Siberian  mammoth  had 
been  unearthed  with  lumps  of  fossilised  flesh  bearing 
the  marks  of  wolves'  teeth,  that  these  things  did  not  tell 
the  story  that  they  seemed  to  tell  —  that  God  had 
arbitrarily  created  such  extraordinary  phenomena  for 
no  other  purpose  than  that  of  telling  a  deceptive  tale. 
Huxley  found  it  impossible  to  believe,  in  other  words, 


TRUTH,  NOT  TRADITION  41 

that  the  world  is  made  up  of  a  succession  of  isolated 
phenomena,  which  at  the  best  are  mere  "  appearances." 
He  found  it  necessary  to  believe  that  these  phenomena 
were  realities,  or,  more  exactly,  were  the  manifestations 
of  some  great,  universal  and  eternal  reality  which  lies 
behind.  Every  star  that  flames  in  its  appointed  path- 
way through  the  skies,  every  flower  that  blooms  by  the 
wayside,  every  ray  of  light  that  pierces  the  darkness, 
every  wave  that  beats  upon  the  shore,  every  fossil  that 
is  buried  in  the  earth,  every  fissure  that  is  carved  in  the 
rock  —  everything  points  to  something  beyond  itself  of 
which  it  is  the  partial  revelation. 

The  archaeologist,  for  example,  excavating  in  the 
sands  of  Egypt,  brings  to  light  some  long-buried 
inscription  of  the  Pharaohs.  The  surface  of  the  stone 
bears  nothing  but  a  confusion  of  straight  and  crooked 
lines,  having  as  little  meaning  apparently  as  the  pencil- 
scratchings  of  a  playing  child.  And  yet  the  arch- 
aeologist knows  that  those  markings  are  not  simply  a 
series  of  meaningless  lines  but  are  the  carefully  written 
letters  of  an  alphabet,  which  spell  to  posterity  the  mes- 
sage of  some  great  king.  He  knows,  in  other  words, 
that  behind  those  lines  there  is  some  truth.  And  so  he 
examines  and  studies  and  thinks,  he  adjusts  and  com- 
pares and  experiments,  he  deciphers,  with  infinite  labour 
and  patience,  one  letter  after  another ;  until  at  last  the 
alphabet  is  known,  the  language  revealed,  the  words 
made  to  speak  their  hidden  message.  And  so  with  this 
world  of  ours.  As  he  gazed  out  upon  this  wonderful 
universe,  Huxley  had  faith  to  believe  that  each  phe- 


42  RELIGION  FOR  TO-DAY 

nomenon  therein  was  a  letter  of  the  great  message  of 
eternal  truth;  and  looking  within,  into  his  own  soul, 
Huxley  had  faith  to  believe  that  his  reason  was  a  key 
which  was  fitted  to  translate  the  mystery.  Just  as 
Pharaoh  had  written  his  inscription  upon  the  piece  of 
granite,  so  God  has  written  his  truth  upon  the  pages 
of  the  universe.  And  just  as  the  archaeologist,  by  the 
exercise  of  his  reason,  deciphered  that  inscription  and 
read  its  message,  so  the  scientist,  by  the  exercise  of  his 
reason,  can  decipher  God's  inscriptions  in  star  and 
ocean,  in  flower  and  cliff,  and  reveal  it  to  mankind. 
Huxley,  in  other  words,  refused  to  believe  that  nature 
lied;  he  had  the  faith  of  Wordsworth,  that  "Nature 
never  did  betray  the  heart  that  loved  her."  Huxley 
refused  also  to  believe  that  the  human  reason  was 
deceptive ;  he  had  the  faith  of  the  ancient  Greeks  that  it 
was  the  compass-needle  pointing  to  the  pole  star  of  truth. 
If  a  choice  is  necessary,  therefore,  said  Huxley,  between 
the  revelation  of  God  as  written  in  the  book  of  Genesis, 
and  the  revelation  of  God  as  written  in  the  book  of 
Nature,  if  I  cannot  accept  both  because  of  their  mutual 
contradictions,  if  I  must  have  faith  in  one  to  the  exclu- 
sion of  the  other,  then  I  prefer  to  accept  the  revelation 
of  the  world  of  Nature.  And  if  I  must  choose  between 
the  testimony  of  church  tradition  and  the  testimony  of 
my  own  reason,  then  I  choose  my  reason,  as  a  great  act 
of  faith  in  the  integrity  of  the  faculties  with  which  I 
have  been  endowed  by  my  creator;  for  I  cannot  believe 
that  God  would  wilfully  endow  me  with  a  faculty  which 
had  no  other  function  than  that  of  leading  me  astray. 


TRUTH,  NOT  TRADITION  43 

Now  this  is  the  way  out  of  the  contradiction  between 
theology  and  science,  as  I  need  not  emphasise,  which  the 
modern  world  has  chosen  to  follow.  Whether  this  way 
is  right  or  not,  I  am  not  now  trying  to  demonstrate.  I 
am  merely  pointing  out  that,  as  between  Gosse's  faith 
in  the  integrity  of  the  book  of  Genesis,  interpreted 
through  the  creeds,  and  Huxley's  faith  in  the  integrity 
of  the  book  of  Nature,  interpreted  through  the  human 
reason,  it  has  chosen  the  latter.  During  the  long 
period  of  the  Dark  Ages,  the  reason  of  man,  as  we  have 
seen,  was  dead,  or  slumbering.  Credulity  of  the  most 
superstitious  kind  was  the  universal  state  of  mind,  and 
therefore  the  whole  tradition  of  the  church,  from 
Ptolemy's  system  of  the  stars  to  Augustine's  great 
drama  of  the  'atonement,  was  accepted  without  ques- 
tion. Then,  under  the  magic  influence  of  the  Revival 
of  Learning,  there  came  the  awakening  of  the  human 
intellect.  Man  began  to  look  about  him,  to  examine 
the  world  in  which  he  lived,  to  face  the  facts  of  life ! 
And  lo !  the  more  he  studied  and  investigated,  the  more 
numerous  became  the  contradictions  which  he  discerned 
between  the  world  as  it  actually  existed  before  his  face 
and  eyes,  and  the  world  as  the  church  said  that  it 
existed.  Between  the  teachings  of  tradition,  in  other 
words,  and  the  teachings  of  the  active  reason,  the  gulf 
grew  ever  wider;  and,  compelled  to  choose,  seeing  that 
no  reconciliation  was  possible,  seeing  that  tradition 
must  yield  to  reason  or  reason  to  tradition,  the  world 
gave  its  allegiance  to  the  reason.  It  recognised  clearly 
enough,  to  quote  Mr.  Conway  again,  "  the  superiority 


44  RELIGION  FOR  TO-DAY 

of  a  great  living  oracle  to  the  creeds  of  defunct  crania." 
It  recognised  that  it  was  easier  to  believe  that  there  was 
a  mistake  in  the  church  tradition  than  that  Nature  was 
a  lie  and  the  reason  a  deceptive  faculty.  It  recognised 
that,  if  God  had  ever  spoken  to  mankind,  he  must  still 
be  speaking  —  as  the  poet  has  put  it,  "  God  is  not 
dumb,  that  he  should  speak  no  more "  —  and  that 
man's  latest  apprehension  of  God's  word  must  be  nearer 
the  truth  of  things  than  his  earliest.  And  the  choice 
thus  made  between  tradition  and  the  reason  has  been 
affirmed  ever  more  strongly  with  the  passing  years, 
until  we  can  see,  as  is  conclusively  shown  in  Dr.  Andrew 
D.  White's  great  book,  that  it  is  the  verdict  of  history 
and  of  experience  that  the  church  has  lost  her  case. 

Under  these  circumstances,  it  is  evident,  is  it  not, 
that  the  new  religion  must  be  a  religion  founded  upon 
truth,  in  the  modern  scientific  sense  of  that  word,  and 
not  a  religion  founded  upon  tradition?  Whatever  may 
have  been  the  case  in  the  past,  tradition  can  never  again 
hold  the  allegiance  and  respect  of  men.  For  what  is 
this  thing  that  we  call  tradition,  after  all?  What 
authority  does  it  wield  and  what  sanctity  does  it  carry  ? 
Is  it  the  full,  the  final,  and  the  infallible  revelation  of 
Almighty  God,  with  which  the  feeble  knowledge  of  man- 
kind is  to  be  silenced  and  confounded?  On  the  con- 
trary, we  know  to-day  that  this  tradition  is  only  the 
memory  of  what  men  thought  about  this  world  in  the 
third,  the  fourth  and  the  fifth  centuries  after  Christ. 
We  know  that  this  tradition  is  nothing  less  than  the 
embalmed  and  mummified  ideas  which  were  active  in 


TRUTH,  NOT  TRADITION  45 

men's  minds  a  thousand  and  fifteen  hundred  years  ago. 
And  we  know  that  the  appeal  to  tradition  is  only  an 
appeal  from  the  "  living  truths  "  of  our  time  to  the 
"  defunct  crania  "  of  eight,  ten,  and  fifteen  centuries 
ago.  And  when  we  are  asked  to  choose  between  what 
men  thought  about  this  world  in  the  fourth  century, 
for  example,  and  what  they  think  about  this  world  in 
the  twentieth  century,  when  we  are  asked  to  choose 
between  the  dead  ideas  of  a  thousand  years  ago  and  the 
living  ideas  of  this  present  moment,  when  we  are  asked 
to  choose  between  the  great  students  of  yesterday  and 
the  similarly  great  students  of  to-day,  can  there  be  any 
hesitation  in  our  choice? 

The  church's  attempt  to  adhere  to  tradition  is  not 
'  an  attempt  to  adhere  to  God,  but  simply  an  attempt  to 
convince  the  world  that  the  mediaeval  monks  and  priests 
knew  more  about  the  truth  of  things  than  the  modern 
scholars  in  our  great  universities.  Why,  if  the  world 
should  suddenly  take  it  into  its  head  to  reject  all  the 
facts  of  modern  astronomy  and  return  to  the  astrology 
of  the  Chaldeans,  if  it  should  resolve  to  reject  all  mod- 
ern medical  knowledge  and  return  to  the  witch  doctors 
of  the  Middle  Ages,  if  it  should  destroy  all  its  railroads 
and  steamships  and  telegraphs  and  telephones,  and 
return  to  the  means  of  conveyance  and  communication 
in  vogue  in  the  days  of  the  great  military  highways  of 
Imperial  Rome,  it  could  not  do  a  more  fatal  and  foolish 
thing  than  to  reject  the  vast  stores  of  modern  knowl- 
edge in  favour  of  the  tradition  of  the  creeds. 

And  yet,  is  it  not  just  this  preposterous  demand 


46  RELIGION  FOR  TO-DAY 

which  the  majority  of  churches  are  tacitly  or  avowedly 
making  to-day  upon  the  intelligence  of  man?  Step 
into  any  orthodox  church  of  our  time,  and  at  once  you 
step  out  of  the  clear  and  bracing  atmosphere  of  modern 
times  into  the  damp  and  musty  atmosphere  of  the  Mid- 
dle Ages.  You  hear  phrases  that  are  never  used  in  any 
other  place,  you  are  bombarded  with  ideas  which  could 
not  live  in  the  sunlight  and  the  open  air,  you  are  con- 
fronted by  an  interpretation  of  human  history  and  a 
philosophy  of  human  life  which  exist  only  as  the  Egyp- 
tian mummies  exist  in  our  museums.  Said  Emerson,  in 
his  Divinity  School  Address,  more  than  seventy  years 
ago,  "  Tradition  characterises  the  preaching  of  the  cen- 
tury —  religion  comes  out  of  the  memory  and  not  out  of 
the  soul."  And  this  is  almost  as  true  to-day  as  it  was 
then.  It  is  now  three  hundred  years  and  more  since 
the  universality  of  natural  law  was  established  beyond 
all  peradventure  of  a  doubt ;  and  yet,  in  the  face  of  all 
the  facts,  the  church  still  persists  in  clinging  to  her 
doctrine  of  miracles.  It  is  now  an  even  hundred  years 
since  the  Biblical  scholars  made  untenable  the  theory  of 
the  infallibility  of  the  Scriptures ;  and  yet  when  a  rash 
clergyman  declared  at  a  meeting  of  the  Episcopal  Con- 
vention in  Cincinnati,  that  the  Bible  could  no  longer  be 
accepted  as  true  and  perfect  in  every  part,  there  was 
an  instant  storm  of  protest,  and  a  great  assembly  of 
presumably  educated  men  solemnly  reaffirmed  their 
faith  in  the  Bible  as  the  inspired  word  of  God.  It  is 
now  a  full  half-century  since  it  was  proved,  in  so  far 
as  the  human  intellect  can  prove  anything,  that  the 


TRUTH,  NOT  TRADITION  47 

human  race  is  not  descended  from  a  single  pair  which 
was  created  out  of  the  dust,  but  ascended  by  the  slow 
process  of  evolution,  from  lower  forms  of  animal  life ; 
and  yet,  when  Bishop  Lawrence  of  Massachusetts  ven- 
tured to  suggest  some  years  ago  that  the  story  of 
Adam  and  Eve  was  an  allegory,  a  half  dozen  of  the 
leading  clergymen  of  New  York,  of  various  denomina- 
tions, took  occasion  to  re-assert  their  belief  in  this 
story  as  a  piece  of  history.  These  doctrines,  and  all 
the  others  which  make  up  the  content  of  Christian  tra- 
dition, are  simply  not  true,  they  have  all  been  refuted 
a  thousand  times,  they  are  ignored  in  our  schools  and 
colleges,  and  laughed  at  in  our  newspapers ;  and  yet  the 
church  still  teaches  them  and  asks  men  to  accept  them ! 
I  say  to  you,  in  all  seriousness,  that  the  church  is  dis- 
loyal to  truth,  she  is  engaged  in  the  business  of  false- 
hood and  deceit,  she  is  a  faithless  witness  unto  God. 
"  Christianity,"  said  James  Martineau,  "  has  been 
mainly  evolved  from  what  is  unhistorical  in  its  tradi- 
tions, mistaken  in  its  perceptions,  and  misapprehended 
in  the  oracles  of  its  prophets?  ...  It  consecrates  a 
theory  of  the  world's  economy  which  is  made  up  of  illu- 
sions from  obsolete  stages  of  civilisation.'*  And  the 
result?  The  result,  says  Martineau,  <c  is  the  spreading 
alienation  of  the  intellectual  classes  of  society  from 
Christendom,  and  the  detention  of  the  rest  in  their 
spiritual  culture  at  a  level  not  much  above  that  of  the 
Salvation  Army." 

It  is  needless  to  point  out,  in  conclusion,  that  the  new 
religion  will  have  nothing  of  all  this.     The  new  religion 


48  RELIGION  FOR  TO-DAY 

will  be  the  friend  and  not  the  foe  of  science,  the  minis- 
ters of  this  new  religion  will  sit  reverently  at  the  feet  of 
those  who  know  and  understand  the  mysteries  of  life, 
and  the  church  of  this  new  religion  will  fling  away  what 
Emerson  calls  "  the  hoarded  treasures  of  old  rubbish  " 
with  which  her  sanctuary  is  now  encumbered,  and  put 
in  their  place  the  newest  treasures  that  the  world  of 
modern  learning  has  to  offer.  The  new  religion  will 
receive  and  embody  in  herself  all  that  modern  science, 
modern  history,  modern  philosophy  have  to  teach. 
For  the  basis  of  her  theology,  she  will  look  not  to  Paul 
nor  to  Peter  nor  to  the  apostolic  fathers,  but  to  Dar- 
win and  Spencer,  Baur  and  Strauss,  Faraday  and  Kel- 
vin, and  the  other  great  scholars  of  our  day.  For  the 
structure  of  theology,  she  will  use  not  the  material 
which  was  fashioned  by  the  learning  of  Augustine  and 
Jerome,  or  of  Luther  and  Calvin,  but  the  material  which 
is  being  fashioned  all  anew  to-day  by  the  best  scholars 
in  the  best  universities  of  the  present  time.  She  will 
care  not  for  the  "  defunct  crania  "  of  even  the  greatest 
men,  but  for  the  "  living  oracles  "  of  the  present  hour. 
And,  more  than  this,  the  new  religion  will  always  be 
ready  to  move  with  the  progress  of  the  times,  to  throw 
aside  old  theories  as  fast  as  they  are  discredited,  and 
to  accept  new  theories  as  fast  as  they  are  approved. 
Caring  nothing  for  any  prejudice  however  comfortable, 
and  having  reverence  for  no  tradition  however  old,  she 
will  be  moved  always  by  the  spirit  of  free  inquiry,  look- 
ing not  to  the  past  nor  even  to  the  present,  but  always  to 
the  future.  She  will  believe  that  more  light  and  truth 


TRUTH,  NOT  TRADITION  49 

are  yet  to  come  out  of  God's  holy  word.  She  will  seek 
to  "  know  the  truth,"  that  she  may  "  bear  witness  to 
the  truth."  And  above  all,  she  will  welcome  to  her  fold 
all  seekers  of  the  truth,  that  they  may  labour  within 
and  not  without  her  portals. 

And  more  than  this  even  will  she  do.  Not  only  will 
the  new  religion  accept  the  truth  as  it  is  given,  and 
open  her  gates  to  the  seeker  of  the  truth,  but  she  will 
also  teach  the  world  that  no  religious  life  is  perfect 
without  the  love  of  truth.  She  will  teach  that  it  is  the 
duty  of  every  man,  who  yearns  to  unite  his  soul  with 
the  divine  spirit,  to  meet  every  problem  of  thought  and 
life  with  the  open  mind.  She  will  instruct  her  members 
not  to  ask,  as  questions  arise,  what  does  the  church 
teach?  what  does  the  creed  affirm?  what  did  the  fathers 
think?  what  do  I  want  to  think?  —  but  to  ask  only, 
what  is  the  truth?  She  will  lay  upon  her  ministers  and 
laymen  alike  the  obligation,  not  to  defend  the  tradi- 
tion, support  the  dogma,  or  stand  by  the  faith,  but  the 
sacred  and  solemn  obligation  to  defend  and  support  and 
stand  by  the  truth,  as,  God  helping  them,  they  find  the 
truth.  She  will  insist  that  membership  in  her  commun- 
ion is  determined  not  by  loyalty  to  what  has  been  in  the 
past,  but  by  unswerving  loyalty  to  what  ought  to  be 
to-day,  and  what  will  be  to-morrow.  She  will  lay  upon 
every  soul  the  one  command,  Know  the  truth!  —  no 
matter  how  many  traditions  are  shattered,  how  many 
treasures  lost,  or  how  many  dreams  dispelled. 

This  is  the  new  religion,  as  the  religion  of  truth. 
And  it  is  this  new  religion  which  is  destined  to  win 


50  RELIGION  FOR  TO-DAY 

again  the  loyalty  and  the  love  of  men.  Ralph  Waldo 
Emerson  gave  the  conclusion  of  the  whole  matter  many 
years  ago,  when  he  said  —  alas!  that  the  church  has 
not  yet  understood !  —  "  Whenever  a  mind  receives 
divine  wisdom,  old  things  pass  away  —  tradition,  texts, 
temples  fall;  the  mind  lives  anew,  and  absorbs  the  past 
into  the  present  hour.  ...  If  a  man  claims  to  know 
and  speak  of  God,  and  then  carries  you  back  to  the 
phraseology  of  some  old  mouldered  nation  in  another 
country,  believe  him  not.  .  .  .  Whence  this  worship  of 
the  past?  The  centuries  are  conspirators  against  the 
sanctity  and  authority  of  the  soul.  .  .  .  Say,  hencefor- 
ward I  am  the  truth's  —  henceforward  I  obey  no  law 
less  than  the  eternal  law.  I  appeal  from  all  your  con- 
ventions and  customs.  I  must  be  myself.  I  must  fol- 
low truth." 


LIBERTY,  NOT  AUTHORITY 

LIBERTY  has  for  so  long  been  a  battle-cry  both  in 
politics  and  religion,  that  it  is  astonishing  to  find  how 
slow  has  been  its  progress  in  the  history  of  the  human 
race.  It  is  only  within  a  comparatively  few  years 
that  the  divine  right  of  a  man  to  be  free  has  been  recog- 
nised in  the  field  of  politics;  and  even  at  this  late  day 
this  recognition  has  been  granted  only  in  those  com- 
munities where  enlightenment  and  culture  have  created 
conditions  favourable  to  the  propagation  of  individual 
independence.  As  for  the  field  of  religion,  it  needs  no 
argument  to  prove  that  authority  is  still  triumphant, 
and  liberty  almost  everywhere  unknown.  The  fact  of 
the  matter  is  that,  while  the  battle  for  liberty  in  the 
political  field  is  already  far  advanced  and  the  fate  of 
emperors  and  kings,  lords  and  nobles,  is  written  in  the 
stars,  the  battle  for  religious  liberty  is  only  just  begun, 
and  the  struggle  against  popes  and  bishops,  synods  and 
councils,  is  destined  still  to  be  bitter  and  long-continued. 
The  throne  of  political  authority  is  already  tottering 
to  its  fall;  but  the  throne  of  religious  authority  seems 
still  to  stand  as  firm  as  the  everlasting  hills.  We  must 
remember,  however,  that  the  battle  for  liberty  is  every- 
where the  same;  and,  in  God's  good  time,  will  every- 
where achieve  the  same  great  victory.  Therefore  if 

51 


52  RELIGION  FOR  TO-DAY 

we  desire  to  learn  what  liberty  is  destined  to  mean  in 
the  religious  field,  we  cannot  do  a  wiser  thing  than 
turn,  for  a  few  moments,  to  the  field  of  politics,  and  see 
what  the  fight  for  liberty  has  there  involved,  and  what 
its  victory  has  achieved  for  man ! 

"  The  struggle  between  liberty  and  authority,"  says 
John  Stuart  Mill,  in  his  essay  on  Liberty,  "  is  the  most 
conspicuous  feature  in  the  portions  of  history  with 
which  we  are  most  familiar,  particularly  in  those  of 
Greece,  Rome,  and  England  " —  a  statement  which  he 
might  very  well  have  expanded  to  include  all  nations 
known  to  the  memory  of  man.  For  it  is  not  too  much 
to  say  that  the  history  of  humanity  is  only  the  story 
of  one  long  struggle  for  liberty  against  authority. 
Certainly  this  is  the  case  in  the  field  ,of  government. 
In  every  country,  as  it  emerges  from  the  impenetrable 
darkness  of  remote  antiquity,  we  find  one  uniform  con- 
dition of  associated  life  —  on  the  one  side,  a  vast 
homogeneous  people,  shorn  of  every  element  of  what 
we  know  to-day  as  political  freedom ;  and  on  the  other 
side,  one  supreme  individual,  in  whose  hands  reposes  all 
authority  over  the  men  and  women  who  live  within  the 
bounds  of  his  inherited  domain  or  beneath  the  sway  of 
his  conquering  sword. 

Of  the  origins  of  this  supreme  authority  of  the  sov- 
ereign ruler,  it  is  not  necessary  at  this  time  to  speak. 
The  studies  of  modern  anthropology  and  sociology  have 
traced  out  the  beginnings  of  political  headship  with 
almost  as  great  a  degree  of  exactitude  as  geology,  for 
example,  has  traced  out  the  beginnings  of  this  planet 


LIBERTY,  NOT  AUTHORITY  53 

upon  which  we  live ;  and  the  whole  story  is  told,  for 
those  who  desire  to  read  it,  in  such  books  as  Tylor's 
Primitive  Culture,  Sir  Henry  Maine's  Ancient  Laws, 
and  Herbert  Spencer's  Principles  of  Sociology.  It  is 
sufficient  for  us  to  remember  the  simple  fact  that  when 
history  begins,  we  find,  in  all  countries,  the  king  exer- 
cising supreme  sovereignty  over  his  people,  and  this 
sovereignty  supported  by  the  universally  accepted  the- 
ory that  the  king  is  at  once  the  blood  descendant  and 
the  personal  representative  of  the  gods.  The  people,  in 
other  words,  have  a  king,  and  obey  him  without  com- 
plaint, because  they  believe  that  he  rules  by  what  is 
called  "  divine  right." 

We  cannot  better  illustrate  this  primitive  idea  of  the 
king  as  at  once  the  descendant  and  representative  of 
the  gods,  than  by  referring  to  a  somewhat  famous  pas- 
sage in  the  second  book  of  Homer's  Iliad.  The  poet 
is  describing  a  great  assemblage  of  the  chieftains  of 
the  Grecian  army  before  the  walls  of  Troy.  Ulysses, 
bearing  the  sceptre  of  "  mighty  Agamemnon,"  the  king, 
has  gone  about  the  camp,  calling  the  heroes  to  the  meet- 
ing, and  to  each  one  he  has  given  warning  of  Agamem- 
non's anger  against  the  host  — 

"  Beware  [he  says]  lest  his  wrath 
Fall  heavily  upon  the  sons  of  Greece. 
The  monarch,  foster-child  of  Jupiter, 
Is  terrible  enraged.     Authority 
Is  given  by  Jove  all-wise,  who  loves  the  king." 

In  obedience  to  this  summons,  the  warriors  come  to- 


54f  RELIGION  FOR  TO-DAY 

gether  in  the  assembly  hall  to  listen  to  the  judgment  of 
their  "  monarch."  And  when  that  judgment  is  spoken 
by  the  angry  king,  there  is  only  one  of  all  the  Greeks 
who  dares  to  stand  upon  his  feet  and  challenge  the  au- 
thority which  Agamemnon  claims  to  exercise  as  "  the 
foster-child  of  Jupiter."  This  man  is  "  Thersitcs,  of 
the  clamorous  tongue  " ;  and  the  poet,  to  discredit  this 
protest,  and  to  make  Thersites  despicable  in  his  read- 
er's eyes,  says  of  him : 

"  Of  the  multitude 

Who  came  to  Ilium,  none  so  base  as  he  — 
Squint-eyed,  with  one  lame  foot,  and  on  his  back 
A  hump,  and  shoulders  curving  towards  the  chest." 

And  when  Ulysses,  angered  at  Thersites's  protests 
against  the  judgment  of  the  king,  raises  his  sceptre 
and  strikes  him,  wounded  and  bleeding,  to  the  ground, 
the  poet  describes  the  host  of  warriors  as  approving 
the  act,  and  bursting  into  shouts  of  laughter  at  the 
cripple's  discomfiture.  And  yet,  in  spite  of  the  maj- 
esty of  Ulysses  and  Agamemnon,  and  of  the  poet's  ridi- 
cule, this  same  "  squint-eyed  "  and  humpbacked  Ther- 
sites is  one  of  the  first  voices,  in  the  literature  of  the 
world,  to  dispute  the  doctrine  of  the  divine  right  of 
kings ! 

This  Homeric  episode  presents  a  true  picture  of  an- 
tiquity. In  the  eyes  of  Homer,  as  of  all  the  ancients, 
such  a  king  as  Agamemnon  was  "  the  foster-child  "  of 
the  gods,  and  held  his  authority  as  the  gift  of  heaven. 
To  revolt  against  the  king  was  to  revolt  also  against 


LIBERTY,  NOT  AUTHORITY  55 

the  deities  of  Olympus,  and  was  therefore  the  most 
terrible  offence  of  which  any  man  could  be  guilty.  It 
was  this  idea  of  divine  origin  which  made  the  king  su- 
preme and  the  people  everywhere  subject  to  his  author- 
ity. It  was  this  idea  which  inspired  such  an  utterance 
as  that  "of  Caligula,  when  he  wished  that  the  Roman 
people  had  but  a  single  neck,  that  he  might  wring  it. 
It  was  this  conception  which  led  Louis  XIV  of  France, 
when  asked  what  constituted  the  State,  to  reply  in 
scorn,  "  L'etat  —  c'est  moi !  "  It  was  this  belief  which 
led  the  obstinate  and  pig-headed  James  Stuart  of  Eng- 
land to  declare  that,  as  it  is  blasphemy  to  dispute  the 
will  of  God,  so  is  it  criminal  to  dispute  the  will  of  the 
king.  And  it  was  this  same  idea  which  induced  Kaiser 
Wilhelm  of  Germany  to  proclaim,  only  a  few  years  ago, 
his  famous  maxim  — "  Salus  populi,  regis  voluntas." 
Stephen  Phillips,  in  his  drama  of  Nero,  portrays  this 
conception  of  the  divine  right  of  kings  with  great  effect, 
when  he  makes  the  youthful  Emperor  declare  that  the 
gods  have  sent  him  to  the  earth,  "  that  he  may  be  a 
joy  to  men";  and,  when  his  words  are  silenced  by  a 
clap  of  thunder,  makes  him  rebuke  the  heavens  that 
they  should  interrupt  his  speech. 

Now,  it  is  this  theory  of  divine  right  which  has  been 
the  foundation  of  all  authority  in  the  field  of  govern- 
ment, from  the  day  of  Agamemnon  to  that  of  Wilhelm 
of  Germany  and  Nicholas  of  Russia ;  and  the  battle 
for  political  freedom  has  simply  been  one  long  fight 
against  this  superstition.  It  is  interesting  to  note  that 
this  fight  begins  comparatively  early.  Thus,  Homer 


56  RELIGION  FOR  TO-DAY 

recognises  an  existing  protest,  even  though  he  ridicules 
and  condemns  it,  in  his  character  of  Thersites.  We 
find  organised  and  scornful  resistance  to  royal  sov- 
ereignty in  such  a  revolt  as  that  of  Harmodius  and 
Aristogeiton  against  the  tyrants  of  Athens,  and  the 
later  close-bound  democracy  set  up  in  that  city.  A 
similar  rebellion  against  divine  right  is  seen  in  the  ex- 
pulsion of  the  Tarquins  from  Rome  in  the  fifth  century 
before  Christ,  and  the  establishment  of  the  Republic. 
With  the  conquest  of  the  civilised  world,  however,  by 
the  Roman  Empire,  and  the  succeeding  period  of  the 
Dark  Ages,  we  find  the  doctrine  of  divine  right  fully  re- 
established; and  it  was  not  until  the  thirteenth  cen- 
tury, when  the  barons  of  England  wrested  the  Magna 
Charta  from  the  unwilling  hands  of  King  John,  that 
we  find  another  attempt  to  set  over  against  the  author- 
ity of  a  king  the  sovereign  rights  of  a  free  people. 
That  great  victory  at  Runnymede,  however,  was  the  be- 
ginning of  the  end  of  the  theory  of  the  divine  right  of 
kingship;  and,  although  many  an  ambitious  monarch, 
like  James  and  Charles  Stuart  and  George  III,  endeav- 
oured to  reassert  his  claim  to  divine  authority,  and 
many  a  gallant  champion  of  the  people's  rights,  like 
Hampden  and  Cromwell  and  the  elder  Pitt,  has  had  to 
fight  many  a  battle  against  these  arrogant  pretenders, 
the  issue  was  never  again  in  any  doubt,  and  the  crown- 
ing triumphs  of  the  nineteenth  century  were  rapidly 
being  completed  in  our  own  day,  in  the  abolition  of  the 
English  House  of  Lords,  the  establishment  of  parlia- 
ments in  Russia  and  Turkey,  the  overthrow  of  Manuel 


LIBERTY,  NOT  AUTHORITY  57 

in  Portugal,  when  the  Great  War  put  an  end  to  the 
movement. 

It  is  such  events  as  these  which  made  possible  the  fa- 
mous incident  which  is  told  of  Mr.  Gladstone  and  Queen 
Victoria.  The  great  Premier,  it  is  said,  was  insisting 
with  some  heat  that  the  Queen  should  sign  a  bill  just 
passed  by  the  House  of  Commons.  Victoria  refused  his 
request,  and,  resenting  his  importunity,  exclaimed, "  Mr: 
Gladstone,  you  forget  who  I  am.  I  am  the  Queen  of 
England."  To  which  Mr.  Gladstone  made,  with  splen- 
did emphasis,  the  immortal  reply,  "  Your  Majesty,  you 
forget  who  I  am.  I  am  the  people  of  England."  We 
have  only  to  compare  this  statement  with  the  reported 
saying  of  Louis  XIV  to  comprehend  what  a  transfor- 
mation has  taken  place,  even  within  as  short  a  space  of 
time  as  two  hundred  years,  and  to  foresee  how  inevita- 
ble, in  political  society,  is  the  triumph  of  liberty  over 
every  kind  of  royal  and  autocratic  authority. 

What  is  it,  we  would  next  inquire,  which  has  over- 
thrown this  venerable  doctrine  of  the  divine  right  of  a 
king  to  rule  his  people,  which  is  sanctified  by  unnum- 
bered ages  of  custom  and  tradition?  In  answer  to  this 
question,  we  may  say  that,  on  the  whole,  two  forces 
have  been  operative. 

In  the  first  place,  there  is  the  negative  fact  that  the 
people,  as  they  developed  in  intelligence  and  culture, 
came  gradually  to  see  that  the  king,  whom  they  had 
been  taught  to  reverence  as  the  offspring  and  repre- 
sentative of  the  gods,  was,  after  all,  an  ordinary  man, 
who  had  arisen  to  his  seat  of  power  only  by  some  acci- 


58  RELIGION  FOR  TO-DAY 

dent  of  birth  or  fortune.  When,  for  example,  there 
acceded  to  the  throne  of  the  Roman  Empire  such  a 
lunatic  as  Caligula,  such  a  monster  as  Nero,  or  such  a 
childish  imbecile  as  Elagabalus  —  when  a  king  tram- 
pled upon  the  private  rights  of  his  people  as  did  Tar- 
quin  Superbus,  the  last  of  the  Roman  kings,  or  the  fool- 
ish Louis,  who  closed  the  awful  reign  of  the  Bourbon 
house  in  France  —  when  a  monarch  was  overthrown 
in  battle  and  his  throne  captured  by  a  mere  adventurer 
like  Jehu  of  Israel,  or  Vitellius  of  Rome  —  when  a  king 
was  too  young  to  rule,  and  some  regent,  like  Catherine 
de'  Medici  of  France,  or  Richard  III,  of  England,  ex- 
ercised his  authority  in  his  stead  —  it  was  inevitable 
that  the  people  should  begin  to  question  the  theory  of 
divine  right.  This  degraded  idiot,  this  wicked  monster, 
this  arrogant  tyrant,  this  rebellious  soldier,  this  arbi- 
trary regent  —  is  this  the  offspring  and  representative 
of  God?  Is  it  possible  that  God  has  given  his  divine 
sanction  to  such  men  as  these  —  men  who  would  be  put 
to  death  as  a  menace  to  the  public  welfare,  were  it  not 
for  the  fact  that  they  were  protected  by  the  royal 
purple?  The  kings,  that  is,  by  their  incapacity,  cru- 
elty, instability,  were  themselves  their  betrayers.  Their 
own  words  and  deeds  revealed  them  as  nothing  but  ordi- 
nary men,  who  were  raised  above  their  fellows  not  by 
the  ordaining  hand  of  God  but  by  those  accidents  of 
birth  and  fortune  which  are  human  and  not  divine. 
Therefore  is  it  only  natural  to  find  such  rebellions  as 
those  in  Athens  and  Rome,  which  led  in  very  early 
days  to  the  establishment  of  republics. 


LIBERTY,  NOT  AUTHORITY  59 

The  second  force  which  led  to  the  overthrow  of  the 
theory  of  the  divine  right  of  kings  was  the  positive 
fact,  that  men  came  to  recognise  what  may  be  called 
the  divine  right  of  the  common  man  to  rule  himself. 
Every  once  in  a  while  there  would  appear  some  man 
of  humble  origin  and  station  who  seemed  to  be  more 
truly  a  representative  of  God  than  the  anointed  sov- 
ereign of  the  realm.  What,  for  example,  was  the  divine 
right  of  Charles  VII  of  France,  as  compared  with  the 
divine  right  of  Joan  of  Arc,  the  peasant  girl  from  the 
village  of  Domremy  ?  And  what  claims  to  divine  favour 
had  Charles  Stuart,  the  King  of  England,  as  opposed 
to  those  which  were  advanced  by  Oliver  Cromwell,  the 
farmer  of  Huntingdon?  Then  again,  it  happened 
every  once  in  a  while,  that  a  throne  would  become  va- 
cant, or  the  people,  in  wrath  against  the  tyranny  of 
their  sovereign,  would  declare  the  throne  vacant  and 
pursue  its  occupant  across  the  borders  of  the  land,  as 
in  the  case  of  James  II;  and  thereupon  would  be 
brought  to  pass  the  strange  event  of  a  people's  choos- 
ing their  own  king,  and  placing  the  crown  upon  his 
head  by  their  own  popular  decree. 

By  such  occurrences  as  these,  it  was  gradually  im- 
pressed upon  the  human  imagination  that,  if  there  was 
any  such  thing  as  divine  right  at  all,  it  was  the  divine 
right  of  the  people  to  rule  themselves ;  and,  as  the  first 
or  negative  fact,  which  we  have  mentioned,  was  the 
usual  motive  underlying  the  revolts  of  ancient  times,  so 
this  second  or  positive  fact  was  the  usual  motive  under- 
lying the  revolts  of  modern  times.  It  was  the  idea, 


60  RELIGION  FOR  TO-DAY 

slowly  dawning  upon  the  human  consciousness,  that 
"  all  men  are  created  equal,  that  they  are  endowed  by 
their  creator  with  certain  inalienable  rights,  that  among 
these  rights  are  life,  liberty,  and  the  pursuit  of  hap- 
piness, that  governments  derive  their  just  powers  from 
the  consent  of  the  governed  " —  it  was  this  idea  which 
led  to  the  revolt  of  the  thirteen  American  colonies 
against  the  tyranny  of  George  III ;  it  was  this  idea,  as 
voiced  by  the  eighteenth  century  Encyclopaedists  of 
France,  which  led  to  the  uprising  against  the  Bour- 
bons and  the  resulting  horrors  of  the  Revolution;  it 
was  this  idea  which  inspired  the  English  Reform  Bill  of 
1832;  it  was  this  idea  which  brought  about  the  simul- 
taneous uprisings  of  the  people  in  France,  Germany, 
Italy,  and  Austria  in  1848;  and  it  was  this  idea  which 
was  stirring  lately  in  Russia,  Portugal,  and  Spain,  and 
planting  in  these  nations  the  seeds  of  political  and  so- 
cial liberty.  Partial  liberty  was  achieved  in  ancient 
times  because  unspeakable  cruelty,  disgraceful  inca- 
pacity, and  bold  rebellions  showed  that  the  kings  were 
anything  but  divine  in  origin  and  character  —  that,  in 
a  word,  the  whole  theory  of  divine  right  was  a  baseless 
superstition.  Complete  liberty  is  being  achieved  in 
modern  times  because  the  theory  of  divine  right,  like 
every  other  theory  of  special  privilege,  is  crumbling 
away  before  the  modern  conviction  that  equal  oppor- 
tunity and  perfect  liberty  are  the  divine  right  of  every 
man  born  into  the  world. 

We  have  gone  thus  at  some  length  into  the  history  of 
the  progress  of  political  liberty,  for  the  reason  that  it 


LIBERTY,  NOT  AUTHORITY  61 

is  synonymous,  in  practically  every  detail,  with  the 
history  of  religious  liberty.  Spiritual  authority,  which 
still  lays  its  hand  so  heavily  upon  the  souls  of  men, 
has  exactly  the  same  origin  —  namely,  the  theory  of 
divine  right  —  as  political  authority ;  and,  what  is  still 
more  impressive,  the  authority  of  the  church  is  gradu- 
ally being  destroyed  to-day  by  the  action  of  exactly 
the  same  forces  as  have  already  proved  the  undoing 
of  the  authority  of  the  state.  Men,  that  is,  have  been 
enslaved  religiously  as  a  result  of  exactly  the  same 
superstition  which  has  enslaved  them  politically;  and 
the  same  motives  which  led  to  the  achievement  of  politi- 
cal liberty  must  at  the  same  time  lead  to  the  achieve- 
ment of  religious  liberty.  In  other  words,  any  man 
to-day  who  accepts  ideals  of  political  liberty,  must,  if 
he  would  be  consistent,  accept  parallel  ideals  of  re- 
ligious liberty,  for  they  are  identical  throughout.  In 
fighting  the  battle  for  political  liberty,  man  has  un- 
consciously been  fighting  the  battle  for  religious  liberty ; 
and  the  victory  which  has  already  been  won  in  the  field 
of  government  is  a  certain  prophecy  of  the  victory 
which  is  destined  to  be  achieved  in  the  field  of  religion. 
We  have  said  that  the  origin  of  religious  authority 
is  the  same  as  that  of  political  authority.  By  this 
assertion  we  mean  to  imply  that  the  church,  like  the 
king,  has  always  ruled  by  virtue  of  what  it  calls  its 
"  divine  right."  All  peoples,  as  they  emerge  from  the 
darkness  of  antiquity,  are  found  to  be  subject  not  alone 
to  the  king,  but  also  to  the  priest;  and  each  of  these 
officials,  the  priest  before  his  altar  as  well  as  the  king 


62  RELIGION  FOR  TO-DAY 

upon  his  throne,  claims  the  right  to  rule  as  the  di- 
vinely appointed  representative  of  God.  It  makes  no 
difference  whether  the  religious  authority  be  that  of 
a  priest  or  of  a  book,  a  prophet  or  a  creed,  the  author- 
ity is  in  all  cases  founded  upon  this  one  universal  idea 
of  divine  sanction.  The  Catholic  priesthood  of  western 
Europe,  the  Greek  priesthood  of  Russia,  the  Brahmanic 
priesthood  of  India,  the  Buddhist  priesthoods  of  China 
and  Japan,  are  all  alike  in  tracing  their  right  to  exer- 
cise authority  straight  back  to  God,  whose  representa- 
tives they  assume  to  be.  The  Koran,  the  five  classics 
of  Confucianism,  the  Vedic  hymns  of  India,  the  Avesta 
of  Persian  Zoroastrianism,  the  Christian  Bible  —  all 
claim  infallible  authority  over  the  human  mind  by 
virtue  of  what  is  called  their  divine  origin.  Jesus  is 
at  one  with  Buddha,  Mohammed,  Zoroaster,  Moses, 
Lao-tse,  in  being  described  by  later  ages  as  a  divine 
being,  appointed  by  God  for  the  guidance  of  the  people. 
The  Christian  church,  in  other  words,  is  just  like  the 
Moslem  church  and  the  Hindu  church  and  the  Jewish 
church,  in  resting  its  foundations  on  the  revealed  word 
of  God.  In  whatever  other  ways  they  may  differ, 
these  great  world-religions  are  at  least  alike  in  this  — 
that  they  claim  to  have  been  divinely  inspired,  and 
therefore  to  have  the  august  right  to  exercise  supreme 
authority  over  the  minds,  the  hearts,  and  the  con- 
sciences of  men. 

Now  in  religion  exactly  as  in  politics,  just  so  long 
as  this  theory  of  divine  right  is  recognised,  just  so 
long  as  the  Catholic  believes  that  the  bishop's  laying  on 


LIBERTY,  NOT  AUTHORITY  63 

of  hands  has  lifted  the  priest  above  all  other  men  and 
endowed  him  to  be  the  mouthpiece  and  instrument  of 
God's  will,  and  the  Protestant  believes  that  the  Bible 
is  different  from  all  other  books,  since  its  words  are 
the  very  words  of  God  himself,  just  so  long  will  any 
such  thing  as  individual  liberty  in  the  realm  of  things 
spiritual  be  manifestly  impossible.  But  in  religion, 
exactly  as  in  politics,  this  theory  of  divine  right  has 
to-day  been  utterly  discredited  in  the  minds  of  all  in- 
telligent people,  by  the  same  two  facts,  the  one  nega- 
tive and  the  other  positive,  which  have  served  to  dis- 
credit the  exalted  theory  of  the  divine  right  of  kings. 
In  the  first  place,  the  church  itself  has  been  its  own 
undoing.  Claiming  to  be  of  divine  origin,  the  church, 
like  every  other  institution  of  our  day,  has  been  placed 
beneath  the  microscope  of  investigation,  and  secular 
history,  archaeology,  the  higher  criticism  of  the  sacred 
literatures,  and  the  comparative  study  of  religions  have 
united  to  prove  that  there  is  no  religion  on  the  face 
of  the  earth  which  has  been  immediately  revealed  to  the 
human  heart,  no  church  which  is  of  divine  origin,  and 
no  ecclesiastical  authority  of  any  kind,  therefore,  which 
has  the  right  to  control  the  thoughts  and  the  lives  of 
men.  Religion,  be  it  natural  or  prophetic,  ancient  or 
modern,  pagan  or  Christian,  is  seen  to  be  everywhere  of 
human  origin,  andfentitled  to  demand  the  obedience  of 
men  only  as  it  claims  and  holds  attention  through  the 
truth  of  the  doctrines  which  it  teaches  and  the  spiritual 
beauty  of  the  ideals  which  it  sustains, \  It  has  been 
established,  for  example,  within  the  narrow  bounds  of 


64  RELIGION  FOR  TO-DAY 

a  single  century,  that  the  Bible,  like  the  Koran  or  the 
Avesta,  is  not  uniquely  divine,  that  it  was  written  by  men 
as  any  other  book  has  been  written,  that  it  is  a  selected 
part  of  the  literature  of  the  ancient  Hebrews  and  the 
early  Christians,  as  the  dramas  of  Sophocles  and  the 
orations  of  Demosthenes,  the  history  of  Livy  and  the 
epistles  of  Cicero,  are  a  selected  part  of  the  literatures 
of  Greece  and  Rome,  and  that  it  is  to  be  venerated, 
therefore,  like  any  other  literature,  just  to  the  extent 
in  which  we  find  it  uplifting  and  inspiring  at  the  present 
day.  Again,  it  has  been  discovered  in  recent  times, 
that  the  Christian  church,  like  any  other  social  insti- 
tution, was  organised  and  developed,  in  its  early  years, 
not  by  the  omnipotent  hand  of  God,  but  by  the  weak 
and  faltering  hands  of  men;  and  that,  like  any  other 
human  institution,  it  can  command  obedience  and  hold 
allegiance  only  to  the  extent  that  it  can  convince  the 
human  mind,  by  natural  processes,  of  the  validity  of 
its  principles  and  the  worth  of  its  ideals.  Still  again, 
we  are  learning  more  and  more  truly  every  day,  that 
Jesus,  like  Buddha  and  Zoroaster,  has  nothing  partic- 
ularly divine  in  his  origin,  character  and  achievements, 
as  the  legends  would  have  us  believe,  but  that  he  was 
simply  a  man  among  men,  one  of  the  many  influential 
figures  of  human  history,  and  that  therefore  his  author- 
ity, like  that  of  all  other  teachers  and  prophets,  is  not 
obligatory  as  being  exercised  by  divine  right,  but  ob- 
ligatory only  in  so  far  as  it  can  commend  itself  to-day 
to  the  growing  consciousness  of  the  race.  In  short, 
the  divine  right  of  a  church,  its  creed  and  its  Bibles, 


LIBERTY,  NOT  AUTHORITY  65 

its  priests  and  its  prophets,  is  exactly  like  the  divine 
right  of  a  king;  each  is  a  myth,  a  discredited  tradi- 
tion, a  superstitious  inheritance  from  a  superstitious 
age,  and  the  one  should  have  no  more  part  in  modern 
thought  than  the  other. 

The  second  or  positive  force  which  has  overthrown 
the  pretentions  of  the  church  to  divine  authority  is 
again  exactly  parallel  to  that  which  has  long  since 
destroyed  the  similar  pretensions  of  royalty  —  namely, 
the  recognition  of  the  essential  equality  of  all  men  in 
the  sight  of  God.  Against  the  infamous  ecclesiastical 
tyranny  of  the  Roman  church,  Martin  Luther  affirmed 
that  wonderful  battle-cry  of  the  German  Reformation, 
"  the  priesthood  of  the  common  man."  By  that  great 
phrase,  Luther  meant  that  no  church  or  priesthood  had 
any  authority  more  divine  in  its  origin  than  the  au- 
thority which  reposes  in  the  breast  of  every  individual 
born  into  the  world.  Luther  did  not  understand  the 
full  implications  of  his  own  doctrine;  he  did  not  see, 
for  example,  that  "  the  priesthood  of  the  common  man  " 
involved  the  right  of  every  man  not  only  to  establish 
his  own  churches  and  choose  his  own  officers,  but  to 
interpret  his  own  Bible  and  make  his  own  creed.  The 
mustard  seed,  however,  was  planted,  and  it  has  been 
growing  through  the  ages  into  a  mighty  tree.  To-day 
we  are  beginning  to  see  that  there  is  nothing  so  divine 
as  human  nature,  that  there  is  nothing  so  sacred  as  the 
human  soul,  that  God,  if  he  is  to  be  found  anywhere, 
must  be  found  in  the  heart  and  mind  of  present  human- 
ity. Everywhere  we  are  beginning  to  see  that  there  is 


66  RELIGION  FOR  TO-DAY 

nothing  which  the  world  can  add  to  what  has  already 
been  given  by  God  to  the  humblest  individual,  and  that 
before  the  divine  authority  of  the  living  soul  the  church 
must  crumble  into  dust,  the  priesthood  fall,  and  the 
creeds  and  Bibles  vanish  like  a  flaming  scroll.  Now, 
as  never  before,  we  are  beginning  to  see  the  truth  in 
the  noble  saying  of  Emerson,  America's  greatest 
prophet  of  the  soul,  that  "  nothing  is  at  last  sacred 
but  the  integrity  of  our  own  mind,  that  no  law  can 
be  sacred  to  a  man  but  that  of  his  own  nature,"  that 
"  the  one  fact  that  the  world  hates  is  the  soul,  since  the 
soul  forever  degrades  the  past,  turns  all  riches  to 
poverty,  all  reputation  to  shame,  confounds  the  saint 
with  the  rogue,  and  shoves  Jesus  and  Judas  equally 
aside." 

It  is  by  this  same  identical  process  of  evolution 
that  the  divine  right  of  the  church,  like  the  divine  right 
of  the  king,  has  been  destroyed;  and  authority,  there- 
fore, in  the  field  of  religion,  become  as  impossible  as 
in  the  field  of  politics.  In  religion,  as  in  government, 
there  is  nothing  of  divine  origin  but  the  individual 
man;  in  religion,  as  in  government,  there  is  nothing 
which  is  sacred,  and  nothing,  therefore,  which  can  ex- 
ercise authority,  save  the  human  soul;  in  religion,  as 
in  government,  in  the  case  of  the  priest  and  the  creed, 
as  in  the  case  of  the  king  and  the  royal  edict,  the 
institutions  of  authority  must  go,  and  in  their  place 
must  come  the  dignity  of  the  common  man,  who,  in  his 
capacity  as  a  child  of  the  ever-living  God,  is  at  once 


LIBERTY,  NOT  AUTHORITY  67 

his  own  king  and  his  own  high-priest.     In  other  words, 
authority  must  yield  to  liberty! 

That  this  fact  is  clearly  apprehended  and  has  al- 
ready been  largely  acted  upon  in  the  world  of  politics, 
is  eyident.  That  it  is  very  far  from  being  apprehended 
and  acted  upon  in  the  world  of  religion  is  equally  evi- 
dent. Still  do  men  fail  to  recognise  that  the  authority 
of  the  church,  like  the  authority  of  the  king,  is  based 
upon  the  identical  superstition  of  divine  right;  still  do 
they  fail  to  understand  that  the  doctrine  of  the  kingship 
of  the  common  man,  which  nobody  disputes,  at  least 
here  in  America,  is  synonymous  with  that  of  the  priest- 
hood of  the  common  man;  and/ still  do  they  fail  to  see 
that  the  great  conceptions  of  individual  liberty  inscribed 
in  the  Declaration  of  Independence  are  just  as  true  of 
men  in  their  relations  as  members  of  a  church  as  in  their 
relations  as  citizens  of  a  nation.  While  the  political 
fetters  have  been  cast  aside,  the  religious  fetters,  which 
were  fashioned  at  the  same  forge  and  moulded  by  the 
same  workmen,  are  still  worn  without  protest  or  indig- 
nation. Men  who  would  die  before  they  would  yield 
submission  to  a  king,  gladly  yield  submission  to  a  pope ; 
and  men  who  would  pour  out  their  last  drop  of  blood 
before  they  would  obey  a  royal  edict,  swallow  a  church 
creed  without  turning  a  hair.  And  yet,  slow  as  is  the 
progress  of  consistent  thinking,  and  few  as  are  the 
people  whose  minds  can  move  from  a  premise  to  a 
conclusion,  it  must  be  obvious  that,  in  religion  as  in 
politics,  authority  must  go  and  liberty  be  finally 


68  RELIGION  FOR  TO-DAY 

achieved  —  that  all  men  must  eventually  come,  in  the 
church  as  in  the  state,  "  to  speak  and  to  do,  as  they 
that  shall  be  judged  by  the  law  of  liberty."  And  this 
means  —  what  ? 

It  means  essentially  two  things.  In  the  first  place, 
it  means  that  every  man  will  insist  upon  his  own  en- 
joyment of  absolute  liberty  of  thought  and  speech. 
It  means  that  no  man  will  accept  the  authority  of  any 
written  creed,  even  though  it  be  backed  by  the  au- 
thority of  all  the  twelve  apostles,  and  be  offered  as  the 
sole  condition  of  salvation  in  the  world  to  come.  It 
means  that  no  man  will  yield  obedience  to  a  pope  or  a 
bishop  or  a  church  council  of  any  kind,  but  will  de- 
cide for  himself  as  to  what  he  shall  believe,  how  he 
shall  worship,  and  what  he  shall  do  in  the  service 
of  God  and  of  his  kingdom.  It  means  that  no  man  will 
surrender  his  reason  to  the  traditional  authority  of  the 
Bible,  but  will  insist  upon  his  freedom  to  glean  from 
the  scriptures  what  he  finds  to  be  true  and  inspiring, 
and  throw  away  all  the  rest.  It  means  that  no  man 
will  yield  his  reason  and  conscience  to  the  authority 
of  Jesus.  He  will  accept  the  teachings  of  the  Naz- 
arene  in  so  far  as  he  finds  them  true  to-day,  he  will 
accept  his  moral  principles  and  spiritual  ideals  in  so 
far  as  they  satisfy  the  needs  of  the  present  hour,  he 
will  follow  in  his  footsteps  in  so  far  as  his  leadership 
still  seems  wise  and  helpful;  but  of  all  these  things  he 
will  hold  himself,  and  not  the  church  or  the  creed,  to 
be  the  final  judge.  In  short,  religious  liberty  means 
that  a  man  will  yield  to  no  authority  save  that  of  his 


LIBERTY,  NOT  AUTHORITY  69 

own  reason,  and  bow  before  no  divine  sanctions  save 
those  of  his  own  soul.  It  means  that  popes  will  be 
dethroned  and  bishops  disrobed,  that  creeds  will  be 
forgotten  and  rituals  discarded.  It  means  that  the 
worshipper  in  a  church,  like  the  citizen  in  a  democracy, 
will  be  free  to  stand  upon  his  own  feet,  to  speak  his  own 
message,  and  to  follow  his  own  conscience  —  free,  as 
Emerson  puts  it,  to  "  obey  no  law  other  than  the 
eternal  law." 

But  this  "  law  of  liberty  "  means  more  than  this. 
It  means,  in  the  second  place,  that  a  man  will  not  only 
insist  upon  the  enjoyment  of  perfect  liberty  for  him- 
self, but  that  he  will  also  grant  the  enjoyment  of  per- 
fect liberty  to  his  neighbour.  It  means  that  he  will 
give  to  his  fellow-men  exactly  that  degree  of  freedom 
which  he  reserves  to  himself.  It  means  that  he  will 
allow  his  fellows  to  enslave  themselves  religiously,  if 
they  so  desire  —  to  be  free,  that  is,  to  forfeit  their 
freedom  by  voluntarily  submitting  to  the  tyranny  of  a 
Roman  priesthood  or  the  equal  tyranny  of  a  Protestant 
creed.  It  means  that  he  will  allow  his  neighbours  to 
outlaw  themselves  from  all  religion,  if  they  so  desire  — 
to  be  free,  that  is,  to  accept  the  gospel  of  atheism  or 
materialism  without  forfeiting  any  of  their  rights  and 
privileges  in  this  world  or  in  the  next.  It  means  that, 
under  the  reign  of  this  "  law  of  liberty,"  persecution 
will  cease  —  not  merely  the  persecution  of  the  faggot, 
the  sword  and  the  cross,  but  the  equally  cruel  perse- 
cution of  ridicule,  denunciation,  and  social  ostracism. 
It  means,  in  a  word,  that  every  man,  enjoying  liberty 


70  RELIGION  FOR  TO-DAY 

himself,  will  respect  the  equal  right  of  other  men  to 
similar  liberty.  In  the  words  of  Robert  Browning,  in 
his  sonnet,  "  Why  I  am  a  Liberal " : 

"  Who  is  it  dares  hold,  himself  emancipate, 
His  fellow  shall  continue  bound  ?     Not  I, 
Who  live,  love,  labour  freely,  nor  discuss 
A  brother's  right  to  freedom." 

In  such  an  ideal  as  this  do  we  find  the  new  religion 
of  liberty,  as  contrasted  with  the  old  religion  of  au- 
thority. And  in  this  ideal  do  we  find  as  well  that  true 
religion,  for  which  the  world  has  so  long  been  waiting. 
Religion  has  again  and  again  been  defined  as  the  yearn- 
ing of  the  human  soul  for  some  kind  of  union  in  serv- 
ice and  love  with  that  infinite  and  eternal  spirit  which 
constitutes  the  essence  of  all  life.  And  what  has  done 
so  much  to  prevent  this  union  of  the  soul  of  man  with 
the  spirit  of  God,  as  the  fetters  of  ecclesiasticism  and 
dogma,  with  which  the  church  has  chained  the  aspira- 
tions of  the  race?  Is  it  not  a  significant  fact  that  the 
whole  history  of  religious  progress  is  the  history  of  one 
long  succession  of  revolts  against  the  authority  of  some 
established  church  by  the  prophet-heroes  of  the  race? 
The  religious  story  of  Israel  is  the  story  of  the  per- 
sistent battle  between  the  Jewish  hierarchy  upon  the 
one  hand,  and,  upon  the  other,  that  long  succession  of 
inspired  prophets,  which  began  with  Elijah  and  Elisha, 
Amos  and  Hosea,  and  culminated  in  the  sublime  figure 
of  Jesus  of  Nazareth  himself.  The  story  of  the 
Protestant  Reformation  is  the  story  of  the  revolt  of 


LIBERTY,  NOT  AUTHORITY  71 

Luther  and  his  comrades  in  many  lands  against  the 
spiritual  tyranny  of  Rome,  which  for  ten  long  centuries 
had  buried  all  of  Europe  in  the  dark  dungeons  of 
mediaeval  ignorance  and  superstition.  The  story  of 
Puritanism,  which  constitutes  the  noblest  page  in  the 
history  of  modern  England,  is  the  story  of  the  fight  of 
those  who  called  themselves  "  ye  Lord's  free  people," 
not  merely  against  Charles  Stuart  and  his  unwarranted 
exercise  of  political  authority,  but  also  against  Arch- 
bishop Laud  and  his  unwarranted  exercise  of  ecclesias- 
tical authority,  and  thus  of  a  struggle  not  merely  for 
freedom  to  rule,  but  also  for  "  freedom  to  worship 
God."  A  man  can  no  more  unite  his  soul  with  God, 
when  denied  religious  liberty,  than  a  bird  confined  in 
a  cage  can  wing  its  flight  to  the  blazing  sun.  Every 
step  towards  greater  liberty  is  always  therefore  a  step 
towards  God.  The  one  declaration  of  St.  Paul  regard- 
ing Jesus,  as  we  cannot  too  often  remember,  was  that 
he  had  made  men  free.  The  supreme  declaration  of 
the  new  religion  of  our  time  is  that  it  will  enable  men 
to  throw  aside  fetters  forged  by  centuries  of  dogma, 
and  regain  the  freedom  originally  granted  them  by 
Christ.  The  great  call  of  this  new  religion  is  that 
which  was  spoken  by  St.  Paul,  and  reaffirmed  by  St. 
James,  "  Stand  forth  in  the  liberty  wherewith  Christ 
hath  made  us  free,  and  be  not  entangled  again  in  the 
yoke  of  bondage,"  that  "  ye  may  so  speak  and  so  do, 
as  they  that  shall  be  judged  by  the  law  of  liberty." 


JUSTICE,  NOT  CHARITY 

IN  the  early  days  of  the  history  of  Christianity, 
nothing  so  amazed  the  citizens  of  the  Roman  Empire  as 
the  boundless  charity  which  was  practised  by  its  ad- 
herents. It  was  this,  perhaps,  as  much  as  anything 
else,  which  set  off  the  early  Christians  from  their  pagan 
neighbours  in  the  cities  of  Greece  and  Asia  Minor,  where 
the  early  churches  were  established ;  for  charity,  as  we 
know  it  to-day,  after  centuries  of  Christian  experience, 
was  practically  unknown  in  ancient  times.  The  Roman 
state,  to  be  sure,  was  lavish  in  its  gifts  of  grain  to  the 
common  people,  and  distinguished  men,  such  as  Julius 
Caesar  and  Augustus,  were  accustomed  to  give  dona- 
tions to  the  multitudes  on  occasions  of  great  public  re- 
joicing; but  the  gifts  of  the  state  were  inspired  more 
by  policy  than  by  benevolence,  and  the  Caesars,  when 
they  scattered  money  to  the  shouting  rabble,  were 
moved  by  pride  rather  than  by  pity.  A  few  examples 
of  genuine  pagan  charity  have  come  down  to  us  in  the 
records  of  the  past.  Thus  Nepos  tells  us  that  Epam- 
inondas,  one  of  the  noblest  of  all  the  Greeks,  was 
accustomed  to  ransom  captives  with  his  own  money,  and 
collect  dowries  for  poor  girls.  Plutarch  narrates  that 
Cimon,  the  Athenian,  was  noted  for  his  kindness  in 
feeding  the  hungry  and  clothing  the  naked.  Tacitus 
has  described  with  enthusiasm  how,  after  a  dreadful 

72 


JUSTICE,  NOT  CHARITY  73 

catastrophe  near  Rome,  the  rich  threw  open  the  doors 
of  their  houses  and  taxed  all  their  resources  to  relieve 
the  sufferers.  But  "  there  can  be  no  doubt,"  says  the 
great  English  historian,  Mr.  Lecky,  in  his  History  of 
European  Morals,  "  that  neither  in  practice  nor  in 
theory,  neither  in  the  institutions  that  were  founded 
nor  in  the  place  that  was  assigned  to  it  in  the  scale  of 
duties,  did  charity  in  antiquity  occupy  a  position  at 
all  comparable  to  that  which  it  has  obtained  by  Chris- 
tianity. .  .  .  Christianity,"  he  continues,  "  for  the 
first  time,  made  charity  a  rudimentary  virtue,  giving 
it  a  leading  place  in  the  moral  type,  and  in  the  exhorta- 
tions of  its  teachers." 

This  distinctive  feature  of  Christian  life  is  con- 
spicuous even  in  the  earliest  days  of  the  new  move- 
ment. In  every  church,  a  committee  was  appointed 
to  care  for  the  widows  and  the  orphans  and  the  un- 
fortunate of  every  kind.  Even  in  the  days  of  bitter 
persecution,  regular  collections  for  the  relief  of  the 
poor  were  received  at  the  Sunday  meetings.  Before 
many  years  had  passed,  a  "  vast  organisation  of  char- 
ity, presided  over  by  the  bishops,  and  actively  directed 
by  the  deacons,  ramified  over  all  of  Christendom,  till 
the  bond  of  charity  became  the  bond  of  unity."  Fur- 
thermore, acts  of  notable  private  benevolence  became 
not  uncommon,  and  institutions  of  mercy,  which  were 
totally  unknown  to  the  pagan  world,  were  established 
in  large  numbers.  Thus  a  Roman  lady,  named  Fabiola, 
founded  at  Rome,  in  the  fourth  century,  as  an  act  of 
penance,  the  first  public  hospital ;  and  "  the  charity 


74  RELIGION  FOR  TO-DAY 

by  that  woman's  hand,"  says  Mr.  Lecky,  "  overspread 
the  world  and  will  alleviate,  to  the  end  of  time,  the 
darkest  anguish  of  humanity."  Other  hospitals  were 
soon  founded  by  St.  Pammachus  and  St.  Basil ;  and 
St.  Basil  also  erected  at  Csesarea  what  was  probably 
the  first  asylum  for  lepers.  A  monk  named  Thalasius 
established  an  asylum  for  blind  beggars  on  the  banks 
of  the  Euphrates.  In  the  time  of  St.  Chrysostom,  the 
church  at  Antioch,  we  are  told,  supported  no  less  than 
three  thousand  widows  and  virgins,  to  say  nothing  of 
the  strangers  and  the  sick.  Legacies  for  the  poor  be- 
came very  common ;  and  it  was  not  at  all  unusual  for 
men  and  women,  who  desired  to  live  a  life  of  peculiar 
sanctity,  to  bestow  their  entire  properties  upon 
churches  or  monasteries  for  charitable  uses.  Indeed, 
one  of  the  chief  causes  of  the  extraordinary  power  ac- 
quired by  the  clergy,  and  the  insidious  corruption 
which  soon  began  to  overcome  them,  was  the  gigantic 
wealth  which  was  placed  in  their  hands  as  the  trustees 
of  the  poor  by  the  sympathetic  or  the  repentant  or  the 
dying. 

What  was  true  in  the  early  days  of  Christian- 
ity has  been  true  ever  since,  and  is  true  to-day.  The 
essence  of  applied  Christianity  has  been  charity.  No 
man  has  ever  been  regarded  as  a  true  Christian  who 
has  not  given  to  the  poor,  and  no  church  has  ever  been 
regarded  as  faithful  to  its  Christian  task  which  has  not 
offered  succour  to  the  needy  and  distressed.  Indeed, 
so  great  has  been  the  emphasis  upon  charity,  and  so 
high  has  this  activity  been  ranked  in  the  scale  of 


JUSTICE,  NOT  CHARITY  75 

Christian  virtues9  that  the  world  has  been  all  too  ready 
to  pardon  every  other  shortcoming  for  its  sake.  Many 
a  king  has  visited  cruelty  and  oppression  upon  his 
people,  and  yet  has  been  applauded  by  his  subjects  be- 
cause he  has  given  freely  from  his  private  purse  to 
the  beggars  upon  the  public  streets.  Many  a  priest 
has  been  a  worker  of  iniquity,  and  yet  has  been  for- 
given because  he  has  visited  the  sick  and  given  relief 
to  the  distresses  of  the  poor.  And  many  a  millionaire, 
right  here  in  our  country  to-day,  who  has  acquired  his 
enormous  fortune  by  methods  which  it  would  be  mild 
to  describe  as  robbery,  is  everywhere  acclaimed  as  a 
good  citizen  and  a  faithful  Christian,  because  he  builds 
libraries,  endows  colleges,  and  establishes  scientific,  edu- 
cational, and  philanthropic  foundations.  Charity,  in 
other  words,  weighs  so  heavily  in  the  scale  of  Chris- 
tian virtues,  that  it  seems  to  counterbalance  everything 
else.  Well  has  it  been  said,  that  "  charity  covers  a 
multitude  of  sins  " ! 

It  is  not  without  reason,  however,  that  charity  has 
been  thus  exalted;  for  whatever  we  may  think  about 
the  quality  of  this  virtue  to-day,  there  can  be  no  ques- 
tion as  to  the  service  which  it  has  rendered  in  the  past 
to  human  happiness.  Mr.  Lecky  is  right  when  he  says 
that  "  no  achievements  of  the  Christian  church  are 
more  truly  great  than  those  which  it  has  effected  in  the 
sphere  of  charity."  Even  though  the  church  had  done 
nothing  else,  it  has  here  at  least  conferred  a  priceless 
boon  upon  the  human  race.  Nothing  is  more  terrible 
in  ancient  days  than  the  indifference  of  mankind  to  the 


76  RELIGION  FOR  TO-DAY 

needs  of  the  poor  and  the  sufferings  of  the  weak. 
Mercy  seems  to  have  been  a  quality  which  was  then 
unknown  to  the  human  breast.  The  exposure  of  un- 
welcome infants,  the  neglect  of  enfeebled  old  age,  the 
torture  of  captives  and  slaves,  the  hatred  of  the 
labourer,  the  contempt  for  woman  —  all  of  these  things 
were  the  commonplaces  of  ancient  civilisations ;  and  not 
until  Christianity  came  into  the  pagan  world,  with  its 
sense  of  the  sanctity  of  human  life  and  its  great  con- 
ception of  human  brotherhood,  did  the  strong  feel  any 
moral  obligation  for  the  protection  of  the  weak,  or  the 
rich  for  the  redemption  of  the  poor. 

With  the  advent  of  Christianity,  however,  pity  seems 
to  have  been  born  into  the  western  world.  For  the 
first  time  it  was  realised  "  that  it  is  more  blessed  to 
give  than  to  receive";  for  the  first  time  it  was  under- 
stood that  we  must  do  unto  others  as  we  would  that 
others  should  do  unto  us ;  for  the  first  time  it  was  seen 
that  we  must  love  our  neighbour  —  that,  if  he  hungers, 
we  must  give  him  food,  if  he  thirsts,  we  must  give  him 
drink,  if  he  is  naked,  we  must  clothe  him,  if  he  is  sick 
or  in  prison,  we  must  visit  him.  For  the  first  time, 
"  the  other  man  "  was  seen,  and  our  moral  obligation 
to  him  was  understood.  It  is  no  accident  that  Chris- 
tianity has  inspired  thousands  of  men  and  women,  at 
the  sacrifice  of  worldly  interest  and  personal  comfort, 
to  devote  their  entire  lives  to  the  single  object  of 
assuaging  the  sufferings  of  humanity.  It  is  no  acci- 
dent that  it  is  the  Christian  civilisation  which  has  cov- 
ered the  globe  with  hospitals  for  the  sick,  schools  for 


JUSTICE,  NOT  CHARITY  77 

the  ignorant,  asylums  for  the  insane,  homes  for  the 
orphan,  the  widow,  and  the  aged,  and  charity  organisa- 
tions for  the  relief  of  poverty  and  distress.  It  is  no 
accident  that  in  every  parish,  throughout  the  Christian 
world,  however  small  or  inconspicuous,  there  is  a  man 
set  apart  from  the  ordinary  walks  of  life  as  a  minister 
of  religion,  who  is  charged,  among  other  functions, 
with  the  care  of  those  who  are  in  distress  of  "  mind, 
body,  or  estate."  All  these  things  are  only  so  many 
expressions  of  that  charity  which  has  softened  human 
nature,  opened  the  heart  to  pity  and  compassion,  and 
"  united  forever,  in  the  minds  of  men,  the  idea  of 
supreme  goodness  with  that  of  active  and  constant 
benevolence."  x  Ask  what  distinctive  contribution 
Christianity  has  made  to  human  history,  and  nine  men 
out  of  ten  would  cite  the  parable  of  the  Good  Samari- 
tan, who,  unlike  the  Pharisee  and  the  Levite,  showed 
mercy  on  the  man  "  who  fell  among  thieves."  This  is 
charity;  and  it  is  this  charity  which  has  been  the  su- 
preme ideal  of  the  Christian  life  ever  since  the  day 
when  that  parable  was  spoken,  and  is  the  supreme 
blessing  which  the  Christian  church  has  conferred  upon 
the  world.  "  Pure  religion  and  undefiled  before  God 
and  the  Father  "  is  partly,  no  doubt,  "  to  keep  oneself 
unspotted  from  the  world  " ;  but  first  and  foremost,  as 
the  Apostle  well  pointed  out,  it  is  to  "  visit  the  father- 
less and  the  widows  in  their  affliction." 

Now  it  may  seem  strange,  in  view  of  all  the  good  that 
has  been  done  in  the  world  by  the  service  of  the  Chris- 

i  See  Lecky's  History  of  European  Morals,  vol.  ii. 


78  RELIGION  FOR  TO-DAY 

tian  church,  that  anybody  should  deny  the  supremacy 
of  charity  among  the  virtues  of  the  soul,  or  assert  that 
there  is  a  better  and  higher  duty  to  humanity  that  we 
as  good  Christians  can  perform.  And  yet  nothing  is 
truer  than  the  fact  that  there  have  always  been  a  few 
great  spirits  who  have  seemed  to  be  dissatisfied  with 
charity  as  the  fulfilment  of  religion,  and  to  be  reaching 
forth  to  some  higher  and  nobler  ideal  of  human  service. 
Always  have  there  been  certain  brave  and  devoted  men 
who  have  gone  out  among  the  hungry  and  the  naked, 
the  downtrodden  and  the  oppressed,  and  asked  if 
charity  was  all  that  could  be  offered  to  these  people, 
if  charity  was  really  the  fulfilment  of  "  pure  religion 
and  undefiled,"  if  charity  was  the  ultimate  way  of  ex- 
pressing the  spirit  of  brotherhood  and  love.  Indeed, 
there  have  been  some  men  who  have  even  gone  so  far 
as  to  suggest  that  charity  meant  the  defeat  and  not 
the  victory,  the  nullification  and  not  the  fulfilment,  of 
religion ;  and  that  the  more  generous  was  the  charitable 
service  of  the  church,  the  more  sure  we  could  be  that 
the  religion  of  the  church  was  a  mockery  and  a  sham. 
Paul  had  something  of  this  feeling — that  charity, 
however  cheerful  and  abundant,  is  not  everything  — 
when  he  wrote  that  wonderful  sentence  in  his  first  letter 
to  the  Corinthians :  "  Though  I  bestow  all  my  goods 
to  feed  the  poor,  and  have  not  love,  it  profiteth  me 
nothing."  This  sentence  I  could  never  understand  as 
a  boy,  since  I  naturally  thought  that  "bestowing  all 
one's  goods  to  feed  the  poor  "  was  the  whole  of  love. 
But  now  I  believe  that  the  Apostle  saw  that  charity, 


JUSTICE,  NOT  CHARITY  79 

which  meant  simply  giving  to  relieve  the  necessities  of 
the  poor,  was  not  the  highest  ideal  of  the  Christian  life ; 
but  that  beyond  this  there  was  that  unmixed  spirit  of 
love  which,  if  acted  upon,  would  see  to  it  that  there 
were  no  poor  who  needed  to  be  fed.  St.  Augustine, 
that  "  ancient  friend  of  the  poor,"  surely  had  some  such 
idea  as  this  —  that  charity  was  only  a  temporary 
makeshift,  and  not  at  all  the  ultimate  fulfilment  of  the 
ideal  of  human  service  —  when  he  said,  "  Thou  givest 
bread  to  the  hungry;  but  better  were  it  that  he  never 
hungered  and  thou  hadst  none  to  give  him."  This 
remark  clearly  indicates  that  the  great  churchman  be- 
lieved that  it  was  good  to  give  bread  to  the  hungry,  but 
infinitely  better  if  the  poor  man  had  his  own  bread, 
and  you  had  only  enough  bread  for  yourself,  and  there- 
fore none  to  spare  for  him  —  a  condition  of  things 
slightly  different  from  that  which  actually  exists  to- 
day in  modern  society,  or,  for  that  matter,  has  ever 
existed  in  the  society  of  any  age!  There  can  Ije  no 
question  as  to  what  was  meant  by  those  church  fathers 
of  the  second  and  third  centuries  of  our  era  who  pro- 
claimed that  charity  was  not  a  matter  of  mercy  but 
of  justice,  maintaining  that  all  property  is  based  on 
usurpation,  that  the  earth  by  right  is  common  to  all 
men,  and  that  no  man  can  justly  claim  a  superabundant 
supply  of  this  world's  goods  —  a  statement  so  similar 
to  the  famous  remark  of  the  French  socialist,  Proud- 
hon,  that  "  all  property  is  theft,"  that  one  can  scarcely 
believe  that  it  comes  from  these  early  Christian  sources. 
There  are  evidently  some  Christians,  in  good  and  regu- 


80  RELIGION  FOR  TO-DAY 

lar  standing,  who  have  been  dissatisfied  with  charity; 
some  Christians  who  have  seen  some  ideal  of  religion 
beyond  that  of  mere  giving  by  those  who  have  to  those 
who  have  not ;  some  Christians  who  have  dared  to  think 
that  it  would  be  infinitely  better  if  there  were  a  some- 
what more  even  distribution  of  material  wealth,  such 
that  there  would  be  no  poor  to  be  relieved,  and  also 
no  rich  to  give  relief.  Charity  is  very  plainly  not  the 
final  end  and  aim  of  true  "religion,  if  these  teachers  are 
to  be  trusted. 

We  may,  perhaps,  be  able  to  understand  the  feeling 
of  these  men,  in  their  dissatisfaction  with  charity  as  the 
ideal  of  religious  service,  if  we  consider  for  a  moment 
what  are  the  conditions  which  make  the  practice  of 
Christian  charity  both  necessary  and  possible.  These 
conditions,  if  I  mistake  not,  are  two. 

First  of  all,  in  order  that  there  shall  be  any  such 
thing  as  charity  successfully  practised,  there  must  be 
a  class  of  people  in  society  who  have  more  money  in 
their  possession  than  they  really  need! 

Of  course,  the  noblest  kind  of  charity  is  that  which 
is  given  by  those  persons  who  have  only  a  little,  but 
give  with  cheerfulness  the  little  that  they  have.  Jesus 
never  taught  a  more  impressive  lesson  than  when  he 
compared  the  rich  people,  who  cast  their  generous  offer- 
ings into  the  temple  treasury,  with  the  poor  widow, 
who  threw  in  two  mites,  and  pointed  out  that  this  poor 
widow  cast  in  more  than  the  others,  since  "  they  cast 
in  of  their  abundance,  but  she  of  her  want  did  cast  in 


JUSTICE,  NOT  CHARITY  81 

all  that  she  had."  This  was  charity  of  a  perfect  type ; 
and  it  is  a  charity  which  is  by  no  means  uncommon 
among  the  poor  in  our  tenements  and  slums,  whose  gen- 
erosity to  one  another  in  the  hour  of  distress  puts  to 
shame  the  generosity  of  those  who  live  in  comfort 
and  luxury.  But  charity  on  any  extensive  and  ef- 
fective scale  is  absolutely  conditional  upon  the  owner- 
ship of  great  wealth  by  a  selected  portion  of  the  com- 
munity. The  charity,  which  builds  its  hospitals  and 
asylums,  which  endows  its  churches  and  its  schools, 
which  organises  and  maintains  its  great  public  philan- 
thropies, is  made  possible  only  because  certain  persons 
have  enormous  sums  of  money  at  their  disposal,  which 
must  be  used  for  purposes  of  public  benefit,  or  else  lie 
idle  in  their  money-chests.  This  age  has  been  called 
pre-eminently  the  age  of  charity.  At  the  close  of 
every  year,  we  are  invited  to  rejoice  at  the  hundreds  of 
millions  of  dollars  which  have  been  given  by  our  Car- 
negies  and  Rockefellers  for  the  uplift  of  humanity. 
Unquestionably  we  must  acknowledge  a  certain  degree 
of  satisfaction  that  these  immensely  rich  men  feel 
their  public  responsibilities  and  thus  give  generously  to 
the  common  weal ;  and  yet  must  we  recognise  that  this 
age  surpasses  all  previous  ages  in  the  magnitude  of 
its  charitable  enterprises,  only  because  this  age  also 
surpasses  all  others  in  the  number  and  magnitude  of 
its  private  fortunes.  It  is  true  to-day,  with  our  col- 
leges and  foundations,  as  it  was  true  yesterday,  with  its 
cathedrals  and  monastic  orders,  that  charity  flourishes 


82  RELIGION  FOR  TO-DAY 

most  abundantly  when  wealth  is  accumulated  most 
abundantly  in  the  hands  of  a  few  individuals  or 
families. 

This  is  the  first  of  the  two  essential  conditions  of 
charity.  The  second  may  best  be  given  in  the  words 
of  Mr.  Lecky,  as  written  in  his  History  of  European 
Morals.  "  Charity,"  he  says,  "  finds  an  extended  scope 
for  action  only  where  there  exists  a  large  class  of  men 
who  are  impoverished."  Charity,  in  other  words,  is 
immediately  dependent  upon  poverty,  and  the  more 
charity  there  is,  the  more  people  there  are  who  are 
in  a  condition  of  misery  and  distress.  If  food  is  dis- 
tributed abroad  by  generous  hands,  it  must  mean  that 
there  are  thousands  of  people  who  are  face  to  face 
with  starva^ibn  ;•  if  hospitals  are  built  in  our  cities 
and  towns,  it  must  mean  that  people  are  sickening  and 
dying  all  about  us ;  if  millions  of  dollars  are  given  every 
year  in  charitable  relief,  it  must  mean  that  multitudes 
of  our  fellow-men  have  not  even  the  few  pennies  that 
are  necessary  to  keep  body  and  soul  together.  It  is 
beautiful  to  see  some  sympathetic  woman  reaching  down 
an  alms  to  the  beggar  by  the  highway,  but  what 
about  the  beggar  whose  hand  is  uplifted  to  receive  the 
coin  ?  It  is  inspiring  to  see  some  wealthy  man  scatter- 
ing his  millions,  like  some  noble  lord  scattering  gold 
pieces  to  the  rabble  at  his  palace  gate,  but  what 
about  the  overworked  and  underpaid  toilers  in  our 
modern  industrial  life,  who  are  the  recipients  of  his 
charity?  It  is  wonderful  to  see  the  Good  Samaritan, 
but  what  about  the  man  who  fell  among  the  thieves,  was 


JUSTICE,  NOT  CHARITY  83 

stripped  of  his  raiment,  and  left  by  the  roadside  half- 
dead?  The  one  part  of  the  picture  is  beautiful,  only 
beca'use  the  other  part  is  so  hideous.  After  all,  the  fact 
is  evident  that  charity  is  abundant  only  because  misery 
is  equally  abundant;  that  millionaires  build  libraries 
only  because  the  people  cannot  build  them  for  them- 
selves ;  that  philanthropists  support  hospitals,  only  be- 
cause the  people  cannot  afford  to  pay  for  their  own 
physicians  and  nurses ;  that  our  stupendous  charity 
organisation  societies  give  public  relief,  only  because 
thousands  of  men  and  women  cannot  earn  enough 
money  in  a  ten-  or  twelve-hour  day  to  live  even  in 
tenements  and  slums.  This  age  is  indeed  pre-eminent 
for  its  charities,  but  only  because  it  is  equally  pre- 
eminent for  its  misery  and  degradation. 

Here,  now,  are  the  two  absolutely  essential  condi- 
tions of  extensive  charity  —  first,  the  existence  of  a 
small  class  of  men  who  are  immensely  wealthy;  and 
second,  the  existence  of  a  large  class  of  men  who  are  im- 
poverished. Without  these  two  conditions  of  wealth 
and  poverty,  existing  side  by  side,  charity  would  be 
neither  possible  nor  necessary.  And  it  is  just  this  fact 
that  has  persuaded  some  of  the  greatest  spirits  of  the 
ages  past  to  believe  that  there  is  something  more  vital 
and  more  important  in  religion  than  any  charity  which 
can  be  offered  to  the  unfortunate  and  the  suffering. 
It  is  all  right  to  give  food  to  the  hungry,  but  why 
should  some  people  be  hungry,  and  other  people  have 
more  than  they  can  eat  ?  It  is  all  right  to  give  clothing 
to  the  naked,  but  why  should  some  people  be  naked,  and 


84  RELIGION  FOR  TO-DAY 

others  be  clothed  in  purple  and  fine  linen?  It  is  all 
right  to  give  relief  to  the  poor,  but  why  should  some 
people  be  miserably  poor,  and  others  be  so  rich  that 
their  gold  and  silver  have  become  a  burden?  Is  this 
unequal  distribution  of  this  world's  goods  fair,  and, 
above  all,  is  it  permanent?  Is  it  not  true  that  wealth 
and  poverty,  existing  side  by  side,  is  an  indictment  of 
religion;  and  the  charity,  which  is  made  possible  and 
necessary  by  these  conditions,  an  evidence  of  the  fail- 
ure of  religion?  For  what,  after  all,  we  may  well  ask, 
is  religion? 

Religion,  on  its  practical  or  social  side,  was  defined 
by  the  greatest  preacher  that  this  world  has  ever  seen, 
as  the  unification  of  humanity  —  the  brotherhood  of 
man.  Jesus's  conception  of  humanity  was  that  of  one 
great  family,  bound  together  by  the  ties  of  love.  God, 
said  Jesus,  is  a  Father,  and  men  are  brothers  one  of 
another;  and,  in  accordance  with  this  conception,  he 
dreamed  of  the  coming  of  a  time  when  men  should  come 
from  the  east  and  from  the  west,  from  the  north  and 
from  the  south,  and  all  sit  down  together  in  the  King- 
dom of  God.  Jesus  looked  upon  all  men  as  simply  the 
sons  of  God.  He  refused  to  recognise  any  distinctions 
of  class  or  colour,  race  or  nationality.  He  disdained  to 
know  either  Jew  or  Gentile,  bond  or  free.  He  de- 
clined to  acknowledge  any  difference  between  rich  and 
poor,  high  and  low.  He  ignored  even  the  ties  of  family 
kinship  —  for  when  he  was  besought  by  his  mother  and 
his  brethren  to  leave  the  multitudes  and  return  to  the 
seclusion  of  his  home,  he  opened  his  arms  to  the  men 


JUSTICE,  NOT  CHARITY  85 

and  women  and  little  children  who  were  gathered  about 
him,  and  declared  that  these  were  his  mother  and  his 
brethren?  Jesus  asserted  that  no  man  could  be  called 
religious,  however  many  prayers  he  spoke,  however 
many  sacrifices  he  laid  upon  the  temple  altar,  who  cher- 
ished hate  and  practised  greed  against  his  fellow-men. 
Religion,  to  Jesus,  meant  gentleness  and  good-will  —  it 
meant  service  and  sympathy  and  love.  God  as  the 
Father,  humanity  as  the  one  great  family  of  God,  all 
men  as  brothers  one  of  another,  love  as  the  perfect  law 
of  life,  this  was  Jesus's  conception  of  applied  religion! 
Now  we  only  have  to  understand  this  conception  of 
religion  as  consisting  of  the  realisation  of  human 
brotherhood,  in  order  to  understand  why  it  is  that 
charity,  so  far  from  being  a  fulfilment  of  religion,  is 
actually  the  sign  and  symbol  of  its  failure.  Charity, 
as  we  have  seen,  can  flourish  only  when  society 
is  divided  between  poverty  upon  the  one  hand  and 
wealth  upon  the  other.  Now,  if  there  is  any  one  thing 
which  is  absolutely  inconsistent  with  religion  as  Jesus 
understood  it,  and  any  one  thing  which  makes  impossible 
the  realisation  of  its  ideal  of  human  brotherhood,  it 
is  this  very  fact  of  the  separation  of  mankind  into  the 
rich  and  the  poor.  It  is  not  for  nothing  that,  when 
the  rich  young  man  desired  to  enter  into  the  fellowship 
of  the  disciples,  Jesus  insisted  that  he  should  sell  all 
his  goods,  and  come  to  him  with  empty  hands.  It  is 
not  for  nothing  that  the  early  Christians  declined  to 
hold  any  private  property,  but,  upon  their  entrance 
into  the  community,  put  all  they  had  into  the  common 


86  RELIGION  FOR  TO-DAY 

treasury.  They  knew,  as  Jesus  knew,  that,  in  the 
Kingdom  of  God,  there  could  be  no  rich  and  no  poor. 
They  understood  perfectly,  as  Jesus  understood,  that 
the  brotherhood  of  the  Kingdom  meant  each  for  all 
and  all  for  each  —  that  all  must  work  and  rest  and 
play  and  live  and  die  together,  and  share  and  share 
alike. 

The  practice  of  charity  began  in  the  early  Christian 
communities,  only  because  the  ideal  of  brotherhood 
broke  down,  and  poor  and  rich  began  almost  immedi- 
ately to  appear;  and  charity  increased  in  volume  and 
extent,  only  because  this  ideal  became  more  and  more 
remote  as  time  went  on.  "  Charity,"  said  Henry  D. 
Lloyd,  in  one  of  the  most  notable  utterances  that  ever 
came  from  his  inspired  lips,  "  charity  is  the  bankruptcy 
of  brotherhood,"  and  therefore  the  bankruptcy  of 
religion !  It  means  that  religion  has  failed,  that  it 
has  gone  out  of  business,  that  it  has  passed  into  the 
hands  of  a  receiver!  Charity,  from  the  standpoint  of 
the  true  religion  of  humanity,  is,  at  the  best,  only  a 
makeshift,  an  apology,  an  expedient.  It  is  an  attempt 
to  make  an  essentially  wrong  condition  of  things  toler- 
able, until  men  can  pull  themselves  together  and  make 
it  right.  It  is  a  confession  that  we  have  failed  to  make 
good  our  religion,  and  are  trying  to  cover  up  the 
failure. 

If  religion  is  ever  to  succeed,  ever  to  fulfil  its  real 
ideal,  ever  to  build  that  Kingdom  of  God  of  which 
Jesus  loved  to  dream,  it  must  do  something  more  than 
practise  charity;  something  more  than  recognise  the 


JUSTICE,  NOT  CHARITY  87 

existence  of  the  rich  and  poor,  and  persuade  the  one  to 
give  of  their  abundance  to  the  miseries  of  the  other; 
something  more  than  build  hospitals  and  asylums, 
establish  charity  societies  and  philanthropic  founda- 
tions, give  turkey  dinners  at  Thanksgiving  to  the 
hungry,  and  distribute  presents  at  Christmas  to  the 
needy.  It  must  go  behind  the  wealth  and  poverty 
which  make  brotherhood  impossible,  and  abolish  them 
utterly.  It  must  seek  the  union  of  all  men  in  the 
circle  of  a  common  family,  where  differences  of  posses- 
sion shall  be  unknown,  and  charity  therefore  unneces- 
sary. It  must  seek,  in  a  word,  not  the  enlargement 
but  the  elimination  of  charity.  This  is  what  Paul 
meant  when  he  said  that  it  signifies  nothing  to  give  our 
goods  to  feed  the  poor,  unless  we  have  that  spirit  of 
love  which  shall  make  poverty  impossible.  This  is  what 
St.  Augustine  meant  when  he  said  that  it  was  good  to 
give  bread  to  the  hungry,  but  it  were  better  if  there 
were  no  hungry,  and  we  had  no  bread  to  give.  This 
is  what  the  old  church  fathers  meant  when  they  said 
that  the  real  charity  was  a  matter  not  of  mercy  but  of 
justice.  And  this  is  why  the  new  religion  of  our  time 
turns  away  from  charity  as  its  ideal  and  appeals  to 
justice. 

For  what  is  justice?  Over  the  court-house  of  nearly 
every  city  and  town  of  this  country,  there  stands  a 
familiar  statue,  which  is  supposed  to  be  a  symbolic 
representation  of  the  ideal  of  justice.  The  figure  is 
always  that  of  a  woman,  whose  eyes  are  blindfolded, 
who  holds  in  her  right  hand  a  sword,  and  in  her  left 


88  RELIGION  FOR  TO-DAY 

hand  a  pair  of  scales.  The  blinded  eyes  signify  that 
justice  is  no  respecter  of  persons,  that  she  does  not 
even  know  who  comes  before  her,  whether  rich  or  poor, 
high  or  low,  king  or  peasant,  and  that  she  will  give 
to  all,  therefore,  a  judgment  which  is  unswerved  by 
prejudice.  The  pair  of  scales  suggests  that  the  bal- 
ances are  held  even  for  every  one,  and  that  judgment 
will  thus  be  determined  by  a  law  of  right  as  infallible  as 
the  law  of  gravitation.  And  the  sword,  of  course,  sug- 
gests that  a  judgment  will  be  decreed  which  is  un- 
tempered  by  mercy. 

Now  this  figure  gives  a  not  inadequate  representa- 
tion of  the  idea  of  justice.  It  suggests,  does  it  not, 
that  justice  is  the  logic  of  the  soul  —  that  spiritual 
process  which  provides,  like  the  analogous  intellectual 
process,  that  a  certain  moral  conclusion  shall  invaria- 
bly follow  a  certain  moral  premise.  Or,  to  put  it  as 
Theodore  Parker  put  it  in  his  great  sermon  on  Justice 
and  the  Conscience,  "justice  is  the  natural  law  of  the 
soul " —  that  spiritual  process  which  provides,  like 
the  analogous  material  process,  that  a  certain  moral 
effect  shall  invariably  follow  from  a  certain  moral 
cause.  Justice  has  reference  to  merit  and  desert.  It 
means  that  a  man  shall  reap  only  what  he  has  sown, 
receive  only  what  he  has  earned,  suffer  only  what 
he  has  incurred.  "  Justice,"  says  my  dictionary,  "  is 
the  rendering  of  what  is  due  or  merited."  "  Justice," 
says  Aristotle,  in  his  Ethics,  "  is  that  virtue  of  the 
soul  which  is  distributive  according  to  desert." 
"  Justice,"  says  Montesquieu,  "  is  a  relation  of  con- 


JUSTICE,  NOT  CHARITY  89 

gruity  which  really  subsists  between  two  things,  and 
which  is  always  the  same,  whether  considered  by  God, 
or  an  angel,  or  a  man."  "Injustice,"  says  the  Mo- 
hammedan Koran,  defining  the  opposite  of  true  justice, 
"  is  the  grasping  of  that  which  belongs  to  another." 
Justice,  in  other  words,  is  a  relation  of  exact  corre- 
spondence between  moral  initiative  and  moral  conse- 
quence. It  means  equal  opportunity,  the  distribution 
of  reward  and  penalty  according  to  desert,  the  bear- 
ing of  our  own  burdens  and  only  our  own.  It  means, 
to  use  ex-President  Roosevelt's  expressive  phrase,  "  the 
square  deal " —  or,  to  use  the  still  more  expressive 
vernacular  of  modern  slang,  that  each  man  "  gets  what 
is  coming  to  him,"  no  less  and  also  no  more!  The 
poised  scales  in  the  uplifted  hand  of  the  goddess  tell 
the  whole  meaning  of  that  justice  which  she  is  supposed 
to  represent. 

Now,  it  is  in  order  to  secure  this  justice  to  every  in- 
dividual, to  provide  that  every  man  shall  receive  all  to 
which  he  is  morally  entitled  and  shall  grasp  nothing 
that  belongs  morally  to  another,  that  governments  are 
established  among  men.  "  Justice,"  said  James  Madi- 
son, in  one  of  his  papers  in  the  Federalist,  "  is  the  end 
of  government  —  it  is  the  only  end  of  civil  society." 
But  this  end  of  government,  unfortunately,  has  never 
yet  been  realised  upon  the  earth.  Always  have  there 
been  those  who  have  enjoyed  exemption  from  the  stern 
exactions  of  justice,  and  for  one  reason  or  another 
have  been  granted  what  we  know  as  special  privilege. 
The  most  glorious  civilisation,  in  many  respects,  that 


90  RELIGION  FOR  TO-DAY 

the  world  has  ever  seen  —  that  of  ancient  Athens  — 
was  en j  oyed  by  a  few  hundred  Athenian  citizens,  at  the 
expense  of  thousands  and  tens  of  thousands  of  abject 
and  persecuted  slaves.  In  the  ancient  Republic  of 
Rome,  to  say  nothing  of  the  later  Empire,  the  privileged 
person  was  the  native  Latin,  who  crushed  beneath  his 
iron  heel  of  conquest  all  the  nations  of  the  earth.  In 
the  Europe  of  the  Middle  Ages,  there  was  the  privilege 
of  birth  —  a  noble  class,  from  the  king  upon  the  one 
hand  to  the  petty  lord  upon  the  other,  enjoying  privi- 
leges which  were  denied  the  great  masses  of  the  com- 
mon people.  In  England,  for  many  centuries,  the 
favoured  sons  of  fortunes  were  the  landowners  of  the 
kingdom;  and  it  is  only  within  recent  years  that  any- 
body has  dared  to  question  the  right  of  this  com- 
paratively small  group  of  wealthy  men  to  hold  the 
privileges  which  have  for  so  long  been  theirs.  In 
America,  a  country  embarrassed  by  the  survival  of  no 
ancient  rights,  our  special  privileges  have  taken  new 
and  unfamiliar  forms.  But  they  are  here,  as  they  are 
everywhere,  in  the  form  of  protective  tariffs,  perpetual 
franchises,  private  land  grants,  and  industrial  monopo- 
lies. "  The  end  of  government,"  as  James  Madison  put 
it,  may  be  "justice";  but  everywhere  do  we  see  this 
end  of  government  defeated  by  the  encroachments  of 
special  privilege.  Always  is  there  some  kind  of  title, 
or  rank,  or  political  power,  or  system  of  taxation,  or 
right  of  private  ownership,  which  is  granted  to  some 
few  individuals  or  families,  and  denied  to  all  the  rest. 
Originally,  these  privileges  may  have  had  some  moral 


JUSTICE,  NOT  CHARITY  91 

basis  in  the  form  of  service  rendered  to  the  common 
good;  but  all  such  service  has  long  since  disappeared, 
and  to-day  these  privileges  rest  upon  no  securer  foun- 
dation than  inheritance  or  tradition.  In  one  aspect 
or  another,  the  picture  drawn  by  Thomas  Carlyle  of 
special  privilege  in  France,  just  before  the  outbreak  of 
the  Revolution,  is  typical  of  all  ages  and  all  countries. 
"  The  widow,"  he  says,  "  gathers  nettles  for  her  chil- 
dren's dinner,  and  a  perfumed  seigneur,  lounging  in  his 
palace,  hath  an  alchemy  whereby  he  will  extract  from 
her  every  third  nettle,  and  call  it  rent." 

Now  this  reference  of  Carlyle's  to  the  poor  "  widow  " 
and  the  "  perfumed  seigneur  "  shows  clearly  what  we 
have  just  begun  to  learn  within  comparatively  recent 
times,  that  it  is  these  special  privileges  enjoyed  by 
the  few  —  these  privileges  which  constitute,  as  we  have 
seen,  a  nullification  of  that  even-handed  justice  which 
"  is  the  end  of  government  " —  which  are  the  ultimate 
cause  of  those  conditions  of  wealth  and  poverty  which 
make  impossible  the  unification  of  humanity.  We  used 
to  flatter  ourselves  that  the  acquisition  of  great  wealth 
was  to  be  attributed  to  the  extraordinary  diligence  or 
ability  of  the  exceptional  individual  —  that  if  a  man 
amassed  his  millions  it  was  because  he,  as  an  individual, 
was  a  "  Napoleon  of  finance  " !  But  this  comfortable 
idea  is  now  very  rapidly  disappearing  from  the  minds 
of  men,  especially  in  America.  It  is  true,  of  course, 
that  the  diligent  man  or  the  able  man  will  gather  more 
money  than  the  sluggard  or  the  fool,  and  it  is  only  right 
that  he  should,  inasmuch  as  justice  means,  in  the  words 


92  RELIGION  FOR  TO-DAY 

of  Aristotle,  "  distribution  according  to  desert."  But 
this  truth  cannot  find  any  possible  application  to  those 
stupendous  inequalities  of  possession  which  are  one 
of  the  most  familiar  facts  of  history.  If  a  man  was 
wealthy  in  ancient  Rome,  it  was  because  he  was  a  man 
of  Latin  birth  or  Senatorial  rank,  and  was  thus  privi- 
leged to  own  immense  estates  in  Italy  and  plunder  the 
provinces  to  his  heart's  content.  If  a  man  was  wealthy 
in  mediaeval  Europe,  it  was  because  he  was  a  feudal 
lord,  who  was  served  and  supported  by  his  thousands 
of  retainers.  If  a  man  is  wealthy  in  England  to-day, 
the  chances  are  that  he  is  the  owner  of  thousands  of 
acres  of  private  lands  which  are  untaxed  by  the 
government.  If  a  man  is  wealthy  in  America,  it  is 
because  he  owns  real  estate,  or  has  been  granted  a  fran- 
chise, or  collects  rent,  or  owns  a  coal  mine,  or  is  one  of 
the  swine  who  has  his  snout  in  the  tariff  trough.  Go 
behind  any  immense  fortune,  and  you  will  find  brains 
and  energy,  to  be  sure;  but  mostly  37ou  will  find  privi- 
lege, the  absolutely  legal,  but  at  the  same  time  the 
absolutely  immoral,  "  grasping  of  that  which  belongs 
to  another."  Every  third  nettle  that  the  widow  picks 
for  her  starving  children  the  "  perfumed  seigneur 
lounging  in  his  palace  "  has  the  privilege  of  snatching 
from  her  hand  in  the  form  of  rent!  That,  or  some- 
thing closely  akin  to  that,  is  the  explanation  of  great 
wealth ! 

And  if  wealth  is  thus  to  be  explained,  in  the  ulti- 
mate analysis,  as  the  fruit  of  injustice,  so  also,  of 
course,  is  poverty.  Just  as  we  used  to  think  that  wealth 


JUSTICE,  NOT  CHARITY  93 

was  due  to  an  exceptionally  high  grade  of  individual 
ability  or  morals,  so  also  we  used  to  think  that  pov- 
erty was  due,  in  the  same  way,  to  an  exceptionally  low 
grade  of  individual  ability  or  morals.  If  a  man  was 
poor,  we  used  to  say  that  it  was  because  he  was  lazy, 
or  impoverished,  or  intemperate,  or  inefficient,  or  im- 
moral. But  more  and  more  in  our  day,  for  reasons 
which  I  have  no  time  to  state  at  this  time,  this  feature 
of  individual  responsibility  is  beginning  to  disappear 
from  the  problem  of  poverty,  and  the  feature  of  social 
responsibility  to  take  its  place.  "  I  hold,"  says  Dr. 
Edward  T.  Devine,  the  leading  social  expert  of  New 
York,  "  that  personal  shortcoming  and  depravity  is 
as  foreign  to  any  sound  theory  of  the  hardships  of 
our  modern  poor  as  witchcraft  or  demoniacal  posses- 
sion —  that  these  hardships  are  economic  and  social," 
and  not  individual!  If  a  man  is  poor  to-day,  it  may 
be  because  he  is  lazy  or  inefficient  or  immoral.  We  may 
freely  grant  the  possibility  —  all  the  more  willingly, 
as  the  possibility  is  so  slight ;  but  the  chances  are  ten 
to  one  that  social  injustice  and  not  individual  deprav- 
ity is  to  blame.  If  a  man  is  poor,  it  is  because  he  can- 
not get  to  the  land,  or  because  he  cannot  get  to  the 
machine;  or,  if  he  does  get  to  the  land,  a  good  part 
of  his  earnings  are  snatched  from  him  in  the  form  of 
rent,  and,  if  he  does  get  to  the  machine,  an  equally 
large  part  of  his  earnings  are  snatched  from  him  in 
the  form  of  profit.  If  a  man  is  poor,  it  is  because  he 
cannot  get  employment  —  because  society  will  not  let 
him  work;  or,  if  he  does  find  a  job,  because  he  cannot 


94  RELIGION  FOR  TO-DAY 

earn  a  living  wage.  If  a  man  is  poor,  it  is  because  he 
is  burdened  by  low  wages  on  the  one  hand,  and  high 
prices  upon  the  other;  because  he  is  physically  weak- 
ened by  long  hours  of  toil  and  indecent  living  condi- 
tions, or  physically  crippled  by  industrial  accident ; 
because  he  is  old,  and  has  been  cast  on  the  junk-heap 
of  modern  industry;  because,  out  of  the  little  that  he 
has,  he  is  taxed  to  the  limit  for  the  support  of  vast 
armaments  of  war,  protected  industries,  and  corpora- 
tion dividends.  Poverty  has  little  to  do  with  the  char- 
acter or  the  ability  of  the  individual  who  suffers. 
"  Poverty,"  says  Dr.  Devine,  "  is  in  the  main  the  story 
of  social  injustice  ...  of  adverse  conditions  over 
which  the  individual  who  suffers  is  unable  to  exercise 
effective  control,  but  which  are  not  beyond  social  con- 
trol. ...  It  lies  not  in  the  unalterable  nature  of  things, 
but  in  our  human  institutions,  our  social  arrangements, 
our  tenements  and  slums  and  subways,  our  laws  and 
courts  and  jails,  our  politics,  our  industry  and  our 
business."  Every  third  nettle  that  the  widow  picks 
for  her  starving  children,  the  "  perfumed  seigneur " 
has  the  privilege  of  snatching  from  her  hand.  That, 
or  something  closely  akin  to  that,  is  the  explanation 
not  only  of  the  wealth  of  the  noble  lord,  but  also  of  the 
poverty  of  the  wretched  widow ! 

It  is  this  special  privilege  which  is  the  ultimate  cause 
both  of  poverty  and  wealth.  If  either  of  these  evils  is 
to  be  abolished,  it  must  be  through  the  abolition  of  spe- 
cial privilege,  which  means  the  establishment  of  that 
even-handed  justice  which  is  "  the  end  of  government." 


JUSTICE,  NOT  CHARITY  95 

And  does  not  this  make  clear  why  the  new  religion 
proclaims  that  humanity  is  to  be  "  redeemed  with  jus- 
tice "  and  not  charity  ?  The  fulfilment  of  religion,  as 
we  have  seen,  means  essentially  the  establishment  of  the 
brotherhood  of  man.  The  realisation  of  this  ideal  of 
human  brotherhood,  as  we  have  also  seen,  is  simply  im- 
possible, so  long  as  society  is  beset  by  conditions  of 
wealth  and  poverty.  Charity  is  the  evidence  of  the  ex- 
istence of  these  conditions,  and  therefore,  as  Mr.  Lloyd 
has  said,  signifies  "  the  bankruptcy  of  brotherhood." 
Charity,  just  because  it  depends  upon  the  continuance 
of  these  conditions  of  wealth  and  poverty  which  make 
brotherhood  impossible,  is  the  only  evidence  that  we 
need  that  religion  has  failed  to  achieve  its  end.  Any 
religion  which  is  satisfied  to  have  a  few  men  rich  and 
most  men  poor ;  which  is  content  to  have  some  men  roll- 
ing in  luxury  while  others  are  suffering  for  the  barest 
necessities  of  life;  which  is  not  at  all  disturbed  that 
some  men  should  live  in  idleness  and  have  everything, 
and  other  men  toil  ten  hours  a  day  for  seven  days  in 
the  week  for  fifty-two  weeks  in  the  year,  and  still  have 
nothing;  which  is  not  indignant  that  some  men  should 
live  in  palaces  and  others  in  tenements,  that  some  women 
should  be  toys  and  others  starve,  that  some  children 
should  have  every  chance  to  live  and  others  have  every 
chance  to  die ;  which  has  no  higher  ideal,  in  the  face  of 
the  facts  of  modern  social  life,  than  charity  —  this 
religion  is  no  religion  at  all.  It  is  only  a  mockery  and 
a  sham  of  religion ! 

What  true  religion  wants  and  will  have  is  brother- 


96  RELIGION  FOR  TO-DAY 

hood !  In  order  to  get  brotherhood,  it  must  abolish  the 
wealth  and  poverty  which  separate  mankind!  In  or- 
der to  abolish  wealth  and  poverty,  it  must  abolish  the 
special  privilege  which  produces  both!  And  in  order 
to  abolish  this  special  privilege,  it  must  seek  the  estab- 
lishment of  that  justice  which  is  "  the  end  of  govern- 
ment"! Is  not  the  lesson  plain?  Is  it  not  evident 
that  what  we  want  is  not  charity,  but  justice;  that 
justice  which  renders  to  every  individual  what  is 
rightly  his  due,  which  distributes  the  fruits  of  the 
earth  and  the  fruits  of  labour  according  to  desert, 
which  provides  that  there  shall  be  some  congruity 
between  what  a  man  gets  and  what  a  man  gives, 
which  forbids  that  any  one  shall  grasp  what  belongs 
to  another,  which  permits  the  widow  to  use  for  her- 
self all  the  nettles  that  she  gathers  for  her  children? 
What  we  want  is  the  justice  which  gives  "  the  square 
deal  "  to  every  man ;  which  means  equal  opportunity  for 
all  and  special  privilege  for  none;  which  gives  to  all 
what  belongs  to  all,  and  to  each  what  each  has  earned. 
What  we  want  is  the  justice  which  is  truly  blind  to 
persons,  and  holds  the  scales  as  even  as  the  everlasting 
stars.  Give  this,  and  wealth  and  poverty  alike  will 
disappear,  and  charity  become  unnecessary.  Give  this, 
and  men  will  be  drawn  together  as  brethren  in  one  com- 
mon family,  "  each  for  all  and  all  for  each."  Give  this, 
and  religion  will  for  the  first  time  be  fulfilled  in  the 
establishment  of  God's  Kingdom  upon  the  earth. 
"  Thou  shalt  be  redeemed  with  justice,"  said  Isaiah  — 


JUSTICE,  NOT  CHARITY  97 

and  only  to-day  is  the  meaning  of  his  word  becoming 
clear ! 

Justice,  therefore,  is  the  watchword  of  the  new  re- 
ligion—  that  justice  which  means  the  end  alike  of  pov- 
erty and  wealth,  and  therefore  the  beginning  of  human 
brotherhood.  And  what  a  change  is  accomplished  by 
this  transition  from  the  ideal  of  charity  to  that  of 
justice  in  our  whole  conception  of  the  practical  aspects 
of  religion? 

In  the  firsl;  place,  the  new  ideal  wholly  transforms 
our  attitude  toward  the  poor.  Whereas  we  have  said 
to  the  poor  man  in  the  past,  "  What  do  you  need?  " — 
to-day  we  are  going  to  say,  "Why  do  you  need?" 
So  long  as  a  man  is  hungry,  we  will  give  him  food ;  so 
long  as  he  is  naked,  we  will  clothe  him;  so  long  as  he 
is  in  prison,  we  will  visit  him.  Charity  will  continue 
as  long  as  misery  endures.  But  more  important  to  us 
than  the  satisfaction  of  his  wants,  is  the  explanation 
of  his  wants.  More  important  than  the  fact  that  the 
man  is  hungry,  is  the  fact  that  he  has  been  unable  to 
get  employment,  or,  if  employed,  has  been  unable  to 
earn  a  living  wage.  More  important  than  the  fact  that 
the  man  is  sick,  is  the  fact  that  he  has  been  unable 
to  buy  adequate  clothing  because  of  the  protective 
tariff  on  wool.  More  important  than  the  fact  that 
the  man  is  in  prison,  is  the  fact  that,  as  a  boy,  he  was 
denied  full  time  in  school,  playgrounds,  and  a  decent 
home,  and  thus  made  a  criminal  in  spite  of  himself. 
The  question  which  practical  religion  asked  yesterday 


98  RELIGION  FOR  TO-DAY 

was  simply  "What  does  this  man  need?"  This  same 
question,  of  course,  we  shall  continue  to  ask  to-day. 
But  it  will  be  immediately  followed  by  the  infinitely 
more  vital  question,  "  Why  does  this  man  need?  "  And 
not  until  the  second  question,  which  concerns  justice, 
is  answered  as  decisively  as  the  first  question,  which 
concerns  charity ;  not  until  the  crust  of  bread  is  fol- 
lowed by  the  living  wage,  the  physician's  drug  by  sun- 
light and  fresh  air,  and  the  visit  to  the  prison  by  the 
playground  and  the  home  —  not  until  then  will  the 
new  religion  be  content. 

If  this  transition  from  the  ideal  of  charity  to  that 
of  justice  involves  a  change  in  our  attitude  toward 
the  poor,  so  also  does  it  involve  a  change  in  our  atti- 
tude toward  the  rich.  For  whereas  we  asked  yester- 
day of  the  rich  man,  "  Where  can  you  give  your 
money  ?  "  to-day  we  are  asking  him,  "  Where  did  you 
get  your  money?  "  We  are  no  longer  interested  in 
how  many  libraries  a  man  can  build,  or  how  many  col- 
leges he  can  endow,  or  how  many  scientific  and  educa- 
tional and  philanthropic  foundations  he  can  establish, 
with  the  millions  of  dollars  which  he  has  accumulated. 
The  people  are  no  beggars  that  they  should  appeal  for 
alms.  Society  is  no  pauper  that  it  should  depend  upon 
these  gifts.  We  can  build  libraries  and  colleges  and 
churches  for  ourselves.  What  we  want  to  know  is 
not  how  many  libraries  the  spending  of  these  mil- 
lions of  dollars  will  give  us  to-day,  but  how  many 
human  lives  the  earning  of  these  millions  took  away 
from  us  yesterday.  What  we  are  eager  to  discover  is 


JUSTICE,  NOt  q- 

not  how  many  souls  the  investment  of  this  money  in 
colleges  and  churches  will  save  next  year,  but  how  many 
souls  the  accumulation  of  this  money  in  business  ruined 
last  year.  What  we  must  find  out  is  not  how  the 
multi-millionaire  will  give  us  his  money  in  his  old  age, 
but,  what  is  infinitely  more  important,  how  this  multi- 
millionaire stole  this  money  from  us  in  his  youth. 

"Where  will  you  give  this  money?" — that  is  the 
question  asked  of  every  millionaire  to-day  by  the 
clergyman  and  the  physician  and  the  college-president 
and  the  charity-worker  —  and  the  question  must  be 
asked,  since  the  money  must  be  given  somewhere.  But 
the  question  which  the  prophet  of  the  new  religion  will 
ask  is  "  Where  did  you  get  this  money  ?  " —  what  hands 
has  it  bruised,  what  backs  has  it  bent,  what  eyes  has  it 
blinded,  what  hearts  has  it  broken,  what  lives  has  it 
cost,  what  men  has  it  robbed  of  their  strength,  what 
women  of  their  purity,  what  children  of  their  beauty, 
with  what  tears  is  it  wet,  with  what  blood  is  it  stained? 
These  are  the  questions  of  the  new  religion  —  and  not 
until  these  questions  are  answered  so  clearly  and  de- 
cisively that  in  the  future  wealth  will  be  as  vile  as  pov- 
erty, will  this  new  religion  of  social  justice  be  content. 

Lastly,  this  transition  from  the  ideal  of  charity  to 
that  of  justice  involves  an  absolute  change  in  our 
whole  conception  of  the  church  and  its  relation  to 
society.  It  means  that  the  church  can  no  longer  be 
content  to  deal  with  individuals,  but  must  prepare  to 
deal  at  first  hand  with  society.  It  means  that  the 
church  can  no  longer  be  interested  merely  in  the  in- 


IftO  :  :  / :  v : '. ELIGl  OR  TO-DAY 

ward  soul,  but  must  be  interested  in  the  outward  social 
conditions  which  environ  the  soul.  It  means  that  the 
church  can  no  longer  seek  to  save  men  out  of  the  world, 
but  must  endeavour  to  save  the  world  itself,  while  men 
are  still  living  in  it.  It  means  that  the  church  can  no 
longer  keep  itself  apart  from  education  and  politics 
and  industry,  but  must  enter  into  all  these  fields  and 
speak  the  word  of  God.  It  means  at  last,  after  nine- 
teen centuries  of  waiting,  the  Kingdom  of  God,  for 
which  Jesus  lived  and  died! 

Such  is  the  message  of  justice,  and  not  charity, — 
justice  as  the  cure  of  the  ills  which  make  charity 
necessary.  And  what  is  this  but  the  message,  in 
modern  phrase,  of  the  brotherhood  of  man?  Nor  is  it 
so  very  modern,  after  all.  Isaiah  said,  "  seek  justice," 
before  he  said,  "  relieve  the  oppressed."  Micah  com- 
manded that  we  "  do  justice,"  before  he  commanded 
that  we  "  love  mercy."  And  it  was  Jesus  who  said 
that  we  must  "  seek  first  the  Kingdom  of  God."  Char- 
ity must  last  so  long  as  men  are  poor;  but  if  men  are 
ever  to  be  "  redeemed,"  it  must  be  "  with  justice." 


ASPECTS  OF  THOUGHT 


THE  DILEMMA  OF  DENIAL 

THE  present  address  is  occasioned  by  a  fact  which 
is  more  or  less  conspicuous,  at  the  present  time,  in  the 
life  of  every  minister.  I  refer  to  the  fact  that  the  age 
in  which  we  live,  more  truly  perhaps  than  any  other 
period  in  Christian  history,  is  an  age  of  very  general 
unbelief.  As  I  go  about  my  work  from  day  to  day, 
and  associate  with  all  sorts  and  conditions  of  men,  I 
am  constantly  being  impressed  by  the  number  of  peo- 
ple whom  I  meet,  who  not  only  have  no  interest  in 
organised  religion,  but  no  longer  believe  the  great  in- 
tellectual conceptions  which  are  commonly  associated 
with  religious  thought.  The  idea  of  God  and  of  the 
soul,  the  hope  of  immortality,  the  faith  in  a  divine 
purpose,  the  confidence  in  human  freedom, —  all  these 
ideas,  which  constitute  the  essence  of  religion  as  a  sys- 
tem of  thought,  and  the  glory  of  the  religious  life  as 
distinguished  from  the  merely  moral  life,  seem  to  be 
gone;  and  they  are  gone,  not  because  people  are  ig- 
norant or  obstinate  or  irreverent,  but  simply  and  solely 
because  they  insist  upon  being  honest  in  their  thought. 
They  deny  these  doctrines  not  because  they  want  to 
deny  them,  but  because  they  have  to  deny  them,  in 
order  to  be  true  to  themselves. 

The  causes  which  have  brought  about  this  state  of 

unbelief  are  not  far  to  seek.     They  may  all  be  found  in 

103 


104  RELIGION  FOR  TO-DAY 

that  marvellous  development  of  scientific  knowledge 
which  distinguishes  the  nineteenth  century  as  one  of  the 
greatest  epochs  in  the  entire  history  of  the  human 
race.  This  new  knowledge  of  our  time  has  affected 
the  religious  conceptions  of  mankind,  it  seems  to  me,  in 
two  ways. 

In  the  first  place,  it  has  acquainted  us  with  a  vast 
number  of  facts  regarding  the  history  and  character 
of  the  world  in  which  we  live,  and  the  facts  in  every 
case  have  been  fatal  to  the  dogmas  of  the  old  theology. 
In  physics  and  chemistry,  in  biology,  psychology,  as- 
tronomy, and  geology,  a  new  world  has  suddenly  been 
revealed  unto  our  gaze;  and  this  world,  as  I  need  not 
point  out,  is  wholly  incompatible- with  those  ideas  of 
God  and  the  soul  which  have  constituted  for  so  many 
\x,  centuries  the  very  bone  and  sinew  of  Christian  the- 
V  ology.  <'The  old  conceptions  of  religion,  in  other  words, 
have  simply  disappeared  before  the  modern  scientific 
discoveries  of  our  time,  just  as  a  morning  mist  disap- 
pears before  the  blaze  of  a  rising  sun;  and,  what  is  in- 
finitely more  important,  in  the  case  of  thousands  upon 
thousands  of  honest  and  devout  persons,  the  loss  of 
these  particular  religious  ideas  has  inevitably  involved 
the  loss  of  all  religious  conceptions  whatsoever.  Un- 
able to  believe  in  a  God  who  is  some  kind  of  a  magnified 
supernatural  anthropomorphic  being,  living  away  off 
somewhere  in  the  skies,  they  have  ceased  to  believe  in 
the  existence  of  a  divine  spirit  altogether.  Unable  to 
believe  that  God  created  the  world  in  six  days  and 
rested  on  the  seventh,  as  is  described  in  the  first  chap- 


THE  DILEMMA  OF  DENIAL  105 

ter  of  Genesis,  they  have  ceased  to  believe  that  God 
has  any  creative  relation  to  the  universe  whatsoever. 
Unable  to  believe  in  the  fall  of  man,  the  total  depravity 
of  human  nature,  and  the  atonement  of  Jesus  Christ, 
they  have  ceased  to  believe  that  human  life  presents 
any  problem  of  moral  and  spiritual  redemption.  Un- 
able to  believe  in  a  heaven,  where  the  good  are  received 
into  eternal  glory,  and  a  hell,  where  the  evil  are  re- 
ceived into  eternal  pain,  they  have  ceased  to  believe  that 
the  human  soul  is  destined  to  immortality.  These  peo- 
ple have  lost  the  old  theology,  and  they  have  not  found 
any  new  theology  to  put  into  its  place.  They  have 
lost  one  particular  kind  of  religion,  and  thus  are  made 
to  believe  that  they  have  lost  all  religion  altogether. 
And  they  wander  lonely  and  desolate  along  the  path- 
ways of  human  experience,  their  ideals  quenched,  their 
hopes  destroyed,  and  their  ambitions  gone! 

But  this  is  not  the  only  way  in  which  these  new 
scientific  discoveries  have  affected  the  religious  concep- 
tions of  our  time.  Not  only  have  they  acquainted  us 
with  a  vast  number  of  new  and  revolutionary  facts 
which  have  undermined  and  destroyed  the  old  theology, 
without  apparently  bringing  any  new  and  better  the- 
ology to  put  in  its  place,  but,  in  the  second  place,  they 
have  acquainted  us  with  a  new  and  revolutionary 
method  of  inquiry  and  investigation.  In  the  old  days, 
the  theological  method,  which  was  based  on  the  idea  of 
authority,  was  in  the  ascendent;  but  now  the  scientific 
method,  which  is  based  on  the  idea  of  rationality,  is 
almost  universal.  Yesterday,  men  assumed,  as  a  mat- 


106  RELIGION  FOR  TO-DAY 

ter  of  authoritative  revelation,  as  a  form  of  thought, 
almost  as  a  condition  of  existence,  that  God  lived,  that 
the  human  soul  was  a  reality,  and  that  this  soul  was 
destined  to  some  kind  of  immortality;  and  then,  from 
these  basic  suppositions,  which  nobody  thought  of  deny- 
ing, they  made  the  logical  deductions  regarding  the 
facts  of  daily  experience.  To-day,  we  have  just  re- 
versed the  process,  and  start  out  by  assuming  abso- 
lutely nothing.  We  come  before  the  world  with  a  mind 
that  is  empty  of  all  presuppositions  whatsoever,  and  we 
study  at  first  hand  the  facts  of  life.  We  observe  these 
facts  as  best  we  can  with  the  apparatus  at  our  disposal. 
Having  observed  the  facts,  we  then  proceed  to  correlate 
and  classify  them,  in  order  that  some  system  may  be 
introduced  into  what  seems  at  first  to  be  a  hopeless 
chaos  of  disorder.  And  then,  having  observed  and 
classified  the  facts,  we  proceed  forthwith  to  interpret 
them  —  to  find  out,  if  possible,  their  significance  — 
to  see  what  they  mean,  if  anything,  and  where  they 
lead,  if  anywhere. 

Now,  it  is  just  this  new  scientific  method  of  inquiry 
which  has  done  so  much  to  dispel  the  religious  faith  of 
the  human  mind.  The  observation  and  correlation  and 
interpretation  of  the  facts  of  life  have  seemed  to  lead 
us  only  farther  and  farther  aw,ay  from  the  thought 
of  God  and  the  hope  of  immortality.  Everywhere,  in 
this  world  of  experience,  we  look  for  God,  but  we  do 
not  seem  to  find  him.  Everywhere  we  search  for  some 
indications  of  the  future  life,  but  we  do  not  seem  to 
discover  anything  which  gives  to  us  assurance  that 


THE  DILEMMA  OF  DENIAL  107 

"  God  created  man  to  be  immortal."  On  the  contrary, 
all  the  facts  seem  to  point  the  other  way.  We  know 
that  man  has  a  notion  of  God,  and  cherishes  a  great 
hope  that,  when  he  dies,  he  shall  live  again;  but  our 
scientific  method  of  inquiry  seems  to  show  us  that  these 
are  purely  subjective  fancies,  and  that  there  is  noth- 
ing in  the  universe  of  real  experience  to  correspond 
thereto.  "  Man  has  an  idea  of  God  and  immortality, 
but,  so  far  as  we  can  see,  the  universe  has  no  fact  of 
either."  The  famous  astronomer  of  the  first  French 
Empire,  who  said  that  he  had  searched  every  nook  and 
cranny  of  the  heavens  with  his  telescope  and  nowhere 
had  seen  God,  seems  to  have  anticipated  the  experience 
of  many  of  us  in  this  century  of  rigid  and  unrelenting 
scientific  investigation. 

Here,  now,  in  the  great  mass  of  new  facts  which  have 
been  given  to  us,  and  in  the  new  scientific  method  of 
inquiry  which  is  everywhere  accepted  to-day,  are  the 
two  great  reasons,  to  my  mind,  why  so  prevalent  a 
spirit  of  denial  is  abroad  in  our  time.  Everywhere  men 
are  denying  the  old  beliefs,  or,  if  they  are  not  denying 
them,  are  doubting  them ;  while  it  seems  as  though  there 
would  soon  be  left  no  voice  to  repeat,  in  sincerity  and 
truth,  the  splendid  credos  of  the  Christian  centuries. 
The  spiritual  interpretation  of  life  seems  to  have 
broken  down  all  along  the  line,  and  sheer  materialism 
to  have  usurped  its  place.  Mephistopheles,  the  "  spirit 
which  denies,"  according  to  Goethe  in  his  Faust,  seems 
to  have  come  at  last  into  his  own ;  and  his  disciples  are 
everywhere  to  be  heard  declaring:  There  is  no  God 


108  RELIGION  FOR  TO-DAY 

—  Man  has  no  soul  —  Immortality  is  a  delusion  and  a 
snare !  More  truly  to-day  than  in  the  day  of  Matthew 
Arnold,  the  tide  of  religious  faith  is  running  out.  You 
remember  how  the  English  poet  stood  on  Dover  Beach, 
and  in  the  slow  ebbing  of  the  tide  seemed  to  see  the  pic- 
ture of  an  ebbing  flood  of  faith.  "  The  Sea  of  Faith," 
he  said  —  and  more  truly  can  we  say  it  in  this  present 
age  — 

"  The  Sea  of  Faith 

Was  once,  too,  at  the  full,  and  round   earth's   shore 
Lay  like  the  fold  of  a  bright  girdle  furl'd. 
But  now  I  only  hear 
Its  melancholy,  long,  withdrawing  roar, 
Retreating,  to  the  breath 

Of  the  night  wind,  down  the  vast  edges  drear 
And  naked  shingles  of  the  world." 

Now  it  is  just  this  question  of  the  denial  of  all  these 
spiritual  verities  of  the  ages  which  I  want  to  discuss 
at  this  time.  And  first  of  all,  I  must  make  an  admis- 
sion which,  to  many  of  you,  no  doubt,  will  seem  to  give 
my  whole  case  away  to  the  disciples  of  Mephistopheles. 
I  must  admit,  that  is,  at  the  very  start,  that  I  perfectly 
well  understand  that  it  is  impossible  to  demonstrate 
that  God  exists,  or  that  man  is  a  spiritual  creature, 
or  that  immortality  is  true.  If  there  is  any  bigger 
fool  than  the  man  who  says  in  his  heart,  "  There  is  no 
God,"  I  believe  that  it  is  the  man  who  says  in  his  heart, 
"  I  know  that  there  is  a  God."  When  we  come  to  the 
bottom-rock  question,  Can  we  really  know  these  things? 
we  must  all  of  us  admit  that  we  cannot  know  them  at 
all.  We  must  become  reverent  agnostics  with  old  Soc- 


THE  DILEMMA  OF  DENIAL  109 

rates,  and  confess  that  we  know  only  as  we  know  that 
we  do  not  know.  To  assert  that  we  do  know  these 
things  is  to  say  what  is  obviously  not  true,  and  to  be 
guilty  of  "  that  impiety  of  the  pious,"  of  which  Herbert 
Spencer  speaks  with  such  justifiable  contempt  in  the 
opening  pages  of  his  First  Principles.  In  the  Middle 
Ages,  of  course,  men  believed  that  they  knew  these 
things,  because  they  also  believed  that  these  things  had 
been  revealed  to  the  holy  church;  and  what  was  said 
on  the  authority  of  the  church  was  accepted  without 
any  question  as  infallible.  Then,  in  the  years  immedi- 
ately following  the  Renaissance,  there  came  the  period 
of  the  decline  and  fall  of  the  conception  of  authority, 
and  the  gradual  ascendency  of  the  reason.  Says  Pro- 
fessor Thilly,  of  Cornell  University,  in  a  recent  article 
in  the  Hibbert  Journal  on  "  The  Characteristics  of  the 
Present  Age,"  wherein  he  tells  the  story  of  this  period 
of  history :  "  Reason  became  the  authority  in  science 
and  philosophy.  The  notion  began  to  prevail  that 
truth  is  not  something  to  be  handed  down  by  authority 
or  decreed  by  papal  bulls,  but  something  to  be  acquired, 
something  to  be  achieved  by  free  and  impartial  in- 
quiry. .  .  .  This  apotheosis  of  reason,"  he  continues, 
"  is  reached  in  the  eighteenth  century  during  the  so- 
called  period  of  enlightenment  —  the  self-conceited  age, 
as  Goethe  once  called  it.  Reason  now  proudly  sits 
upon  the  throne  once  occupied  by  ecclesiastical  author- 
ity, and  in  her  supreme  self-confidence  believes  herself 
competent  to  solve  all  problems."  But  pride,  in  this 
case  as  in  every  other,  only  goes  before  a  fall.  Be- 


110  RELIGION  FOR  TO-DAY 

ginning  with  Immanuel  Kant's  immortal  work  on  The 
Critique  of  Pure  Reason,  wherein  he  showed  that  the 
human  reason  was  incompetent  to  answer  the  great 
questions  of  God,  immortality,  and  the  freedom  of  the 
will,  our  age  has  grown  ever  more  "  sceptical  of  the 
power  of  the  human  reason  to  reach  a  rational  explana- 
tion of  the  universe  as  a  whole."  "  Philosophy,"  says 
Professor  Thilly  again,  in  this  same  essay,  "  has  been 
relegated  with  theology  to  the  lumber-room  of  thought. 
We  cannot  prove  the  existence  of  God,  freedom,  and 
immortality.  Such  questions,  and  indeed  all  questions 
of  ultimates,  are  quite  beyond  our  ken.  We  can  know 
only  what  we  experience;  we  are  limited  to  our  sense- 
perception,  and  even  here  we  can  reach  only  a  high 
degree  of  probability." 

We  must  admit,  therefore,  at  the  very  start,  that 
none  of  these  great  conceptions  of  theological  specu- 
lation can  be  proved.  We  may  observe  facts  as  we 
will,  we  may  correlate  these  facts  exhaustively,  we  may 
interpret  them  according  to  the  best  categories  of  the 
understanding;  but  no  one  of  these  processes  of  in- 
vestigation alone,  nor  all  of  them  together,  can  lead  us 
into  the  realm  of  certain  knowledge.  On  the  basis  of 
pure  reason,  as  the  great  Kant  pointed  out  so  many 
years  ago,  we  must  answer  to  the  questions,  Does  God 
exist?  Is  the  soul  immortal?  Is  man  free?- — We  do 
not  know ! 

Such  an  admission,  as  I  have  said,  may  well  seem  to 
give  away  our  whole  case  to  the  atheists  and  material- 
ists. Once  admit  the  impossibility  of  the  rational  dem- 


THE  DILEMMA  OF  DENIAL  111 

onstration  of  ultimate  truth,  and  it  would  seem  indeed 
as  though  the  battle  were  already  lost.  I  would  hasten 
to  point  out,  however,  that  this  is  certainly  very  far 
from  being  the  case.  It  may  be  true  that  we  do  not 
know  that  God  exists,  but  this  is  very  different  from 
the  assertion  that  we  know  that  God  does  not  exist. 
It  may  be  true  that  we  must  admit  that  the  reality  of 
the  immortal  life  has  not  been  proved,  but  this  is  very 
far  from  admitting  that  the  unreality  of  the  immortal 
life  has  been  proved.  When  we  assume  toward  these 
ultimate  questions,  as  every  intelligent  truth-seeker 
must  assume,  the  attitude  of  the  reverent  agnostic, 
this  means,  not  that  these  great  speculations  of  the 
religious  consciousness  have  been  laid  aside  as  dis- 
proved, but  that  the  case  is  still  open,  and  that  the 
facts  still  await  a  final  interpretation  of  their  mean- 
ing. When  we  say  that  we  do  not  know  —  let  me 
repeat !  —  we  mean  not  only  that  we  do  not  know  that 
God  exists,  or  that  the  soul  is  immortal,  or  that  man 
is  free,  but  also  that  we  do  not  know  that  God  does 
not  exist,  or  that  the  soul  is  not  immortal,  or  that  man 
is  not  free.  We  mean  only  that  we  can  give  no  final 
answer  either  positive  or  negative  —  that  no  certain 
and  absolute  knowledge  either  one  way  or  the  other  is 
yet  possible  —  and  that  in  such  a  case  our  task  is  that 
of  observing,  classifying,  and  interpreting  ever  more 
and  more  facts,  and  finding  out  what  constitutes,  in 
the  light  of  these  facts,  the  highest  degree  of  prob- 
ability. Our  problem  is  identical  with  that  of  the 
detective,  who  is  confronted  with  certain  facts  in  a 


RELIGION  FOR  TO-DAY 

case  which  may  be  that  of  murder,  or  suicide,  or  acci- 
dent. He  searches  every  square  inch  of  the  scene  in- 
volved ;  then  he  classifies  and  studies  all  of  the  facts 
which  he  has  been  able  to  gather;  and  then  knowing 
nothing  for  certain,  he  asks  himself  the  question,  What 
is  the  most  probable  theory  to  fit  these  facts,  that  of 
murder,  or  suicide,  or  accident?  So  the  student  of 
theology  ransacks  the  universe  in  his  search  for  facts ; 
he  correlates  and  studies  these  facts;  and  then,  like 
the  detective,  knowing  nothing  for  certain,  he  asks  him- 
self the  question,  What  is  the  most  probable  theory  to 
fit  these  facts,  that  of  theism,  or  atheism,  or  something 
perhaps  between? 

Now  it  is  when  we  come  to  this  point  of  recognising 
that  our  failure  to  prove  the  existence  of  God  involves 
also  an  equal  failure  to  disprove  the  existence  of  God, 
or,  in  other  words,  that  we  are  confronted  by  what  we 
call  an  open  question,  it  is  then  that  we  are  able,  for 
the  first  time,  to  reveal  the  essential  weakness  of  the 
position  of  doubt,  or  even  of  denial.  For  we  only  have 
to  consider  for  a  few  moments  what  the  doctrine  of 
denial  really  involves,  to  find  ourselves  face  to  face  with 
a  dilemma  of  a  most  confusing  and  embarrassing  char- 
acter.—  In  order  to  show  you  just  what  I  mean  by  this 
dilemma  of  denial,  let  us  consider  that  one  great  ques- 
tion which  lies  at  the  heart  of  all  religious  faith,  and 
which  is  most  commonly  called  into  dispute  at  the  pres- 
ent time.  I  refer  of  course  to  that  deepest  and  highest 
of  all  religious  problems,  the  idea  of  God. 

By  the  idea  of  God,  we  mean  the  idea  of  an  infinite 


THE  DILEMMA  OF  DENIAL  113 

and  eternal  spirit,  in  whom  we  live  and  move  and  have 
our  being.  We  mean  that  this  world  of  organic  and 
inorganic  life  is  an  expression,  on  the  one  hand,  of  a 
planning,  ordering,  directing  spirit  of  Intelligence,  and, 
on  the  other  hand,  of  a  spontaneous,  watchful,  eager 
spirit  of  Love.  We  mean  that  we  believe  that  there  is 
living  somewhere  and  somehow  a  thinking,  loving,  active 
Divine  Spirit,  who  constitutes  in  his  eternal,  infinite, 
and  omnipresent  being,  the  reality  of  all  things;  and 
who  may  be  roughly  described,  perhaps,  as  bearing  the 
same  relation  to  the  material  universe  that  our  souls 
bear  to  our  physical  bodies.  Now  it  is  just  this  con- 
ception of  an  overruling  Intelligence  and  Love  which 
the  atheist  or  the  materialist  denies.  He  asserts  that 
the  facts  of  life,  when  viewed  in  the  light  of  reason, 
destroy  this  whole  conception  of  God. 

In  the  first  place,  he  declares,  this  universe  is  not 
so  much  an  organism,  as  it  is  a  machine ;  and  we  need, 
in  order  to  explain  its  origin  and  progress,  not  a  soul, 
but  only  those  mechanical  laws  and  forces  which  have 
been  revealed  to  us  so  clearly  by  the  chemists  and  physi- 
cists of  the  nineteenth  century.  Thus  Prof.  Ernst 
Haeckel,  in  his  Riddle  of  the  Universe,  speaking  of  the 
origin  of  things,  declares  that  he  does  not  need  any 
hypothesis  of  God  to  answer  the  problem  of  the  genesis 
of  the  universe.  I  trace  back  step  by  step,  he  says,  the 
line  of  evolutionary  progress,  until  I  come  to  a  great 
void  of  empty  space,  which  contains  only  one  little 
atom  of  matter  and  one  little  particle  of  energy.  Drift- 
ing around  in  the  great  void,  it  chances  at  last,  not  by 


1U  RELIGION  FOR  TO-DAY 

design  but  merely  by  accident,  that  the  atom  of  matter 
and  the  spark  of  energy  come  together,  and  instantly, 
in  accordance  with  the  fundamental  law  of  life,  the 
evolutionary  process  is  begun. 

In  the  second  place,  not  only  does  the  materialist 
declare  that  we  do  not  need  any  thought  of  God  in 
order  to  explain  the  origin  and  development  of  the 
material  universe,  but  he  also  declares  that,  even  though 
we  might  think  that  we  needed  such  a  First  Cause,  as 
the  metaphysical  explanation  of  things,  yet  the  pro- 
cesses of  life  certainly  give  no  evidence  of  being  di- 
rected by  a  divine  Intelligence  and  Love.  What,  for 
example,  he  says,  are  we  to  think  of  the  history  of 
evolution?  Does  this  show  any  signs  of  being  planned 
and  directed  by  a  divine  Intelligence?  Is  this  the  kind 
of  method  of  accomplishing  a  specific  end  which  would 
be  adopted  by  anybody  who  desired  to  lay  claim  to  the 
possession  of  even  ordinary  sanity?  Could  we  con- 
ceive of  any  process  which  is  more  blundering,  more 
hit-and-miss,  and,  above  all  things,  more  wasteful? 
The  evolving  ages  luive  brought  forth  a  man,  but  at 
what  a  cost  of  blood  and  tears  and  agony  —  one  achieve- 
ment at  the  cost  of  a  million  failures.  What  would  we 
think  of  a  man,  said  the  great  Tyndall  at  one  time,  who 
should  desire  to  shoot  a  rabbit,  and,  instead  of  taking 
a  rifle  and  shooting  the  animal  he  was  after,  should 
take  a  whole  regiment  of  artillery  and  proceed  to  blow 
the  landscape  to  pieces?  We  would  say  that  the  man 
was  insane;  and  Tyndall,  answering  his  own  question, 


THE  DILEMMA  OF  DENIAL  115 

declared  that  this  is  just  the  insane  thing  that  God 
has  been  doing  in  his  process  of  evolution. 

Then,  too,  consider,  if  you  will,  those  particular  ob- 
jects which  have  been  most  frequently  employed  as  the 
evidence  of  a  supreme  Designer  and  Artificer  existing 
behind  the  material  world.  Here  is  the  human  eye,  for 
example!  This  has  been  offered  again  and  again  by 
the  believer  as  a  triumph  of  intelligent  planning  and 
skilful  workmanship  —  a  perfect  adaptation  of  means 
to  ends.  And  yet,  says  the  materialist,  we  know  to-day 
that  the  eye,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  is  a  very  defective 
organ ;  so  defective,  that  any  master  of  optics  who  could 
not  plan  and  manufacture  a  better  organ  of  vision  than 
the  eye  would  be  considered  a  disgrace  to  his  profession. 
And  this  is  only  one  illustration  among  many !  Every- 
where, in  the  material  universe,  in  short,  we  find  not 
order  and  system,  economy  and  beauty,  such  as  we 
would  expect  in  the  work  of  an  intelligent  creator,  but 
disorder  and  confusion,  waste  and  ugliness,  imperfec- 
tion and  incompleteness,  defect  of  adaptation  of  means 
to  ends,  blunders,  failures. 

Then,  turning  away  from  the  question  of  God  as  In- 
telligence to  the  question  of  God  as  Love,  what  are  we  to 
say  as  to  the  pain  and  the  cruelty  and  the  evil  that  are 
implicit  in  the  cosmic  process  —  the  cataclysms  and  dis- 
asters, the  famines  and  pestilences,  the  awful  agonies  of 
accident,  old  age  and  death?  Do  you  mean  to  say  that 
we  can  reconcile  these  hideous  facts  with  a  God  who  is 
described  as  a  Father,  and  whose  mercy  is  said  to  be 


116  RELIGION  FOR  TO-DAY 

from  everlasting  to  everlasting?  The  out-and-out  de- 
niers  of  God's  existence  are  not  the  only  ones  who  have 
been  depressed  and  overwhelmed  by  the  misery  that 
seems  to  be  attendant  upon  existence.  John  Stuart 
Mill,  you  remember,  who  believed  most  emphatically  in 
God,  asserted  that  these  facts  proved  that  the  Creator, 
while  all-loving,  was  certainly  not  omnipotent;  and 
William  James,  in  our  day,  was  so  impressed,  not  only; 
by  the  disorder  of  the  universe,  but  by  its  awful  pain, 
that  while  he  clung  to  his  faith  in  a  divine  principle,  he 
was  forced  to  believe  that  this  principle  was  either 
pluralistic  and  thus  divided  against  itself,  or  else  power- 
less to  do  the  things  which,  as  the  Creator  and  Ruler 
of  a  universe,  it  wanted  to  do. 

Here,  of  course,  is  a  mere  suggestion  of  the  mate- 
rialistic argument.  But  even  these  few  facts  are  suffi- 
cient perhaps  to  show  some  of  the  difficulties  in  the  way 
of  an  unquestioning  theistic  faith.  These  difficulties,  of 
course,  do  not  disprove  the  existence  of  God,  but  they 
certainly  go  far  toward  making  such  a  divine  reality 
improbable.  In  other  words,  the  facts  of  life  make  it 
hard  to  believe  in  an  all-wise,  all-loving,  and  all-power- 
ful God;  and,  in  the  face  of  the  fact  that  we  do  not 
need  him  to  explain  the  origin  of  things,  it  is  only 
reasonable,  is  it  not,  to  deny  his  existence? 

Now  I  am  not  going  to  stop  to  refute  these  various 
objections  to  the  belief  in  a  God  who  is  at  once  intelli- 
gent, merciful,  and  omnipotent.  I  am  concerned  at 
this  time  not  with  answering  the  argument  of  material- 
ism but  only  with  showing  the  dilemma  into  which  this 


THE  DILEMMA  OF  DENIAL  117 

argument  inevitably  leads  us.  And  that  it  is  a  very 
real  and  peculiarly  embarrassing  dilemma,  becomes  evi- 
dent when  we  ask  the  materialist  what  explanation  of 
the  universe  he  has  to  offer  in  place  of  the  theistic  ex- 
planation which  he  has  denied. 

When  we  ask  this  question,  we  find,  first  of  all, 
that  he  fails  utterly  to  give  any  explanation  of  the 
origin  of  things.  He  takes  us  back,  to  be  sure,  to  that 
first  atom  of  matter  and  that  first  particle  of  energy, 
the  alliance  of  which  started  the  unfolding  process  of 
evolutionary  development;  but  nowhere,  so  far  as  I 
know,  has  he  ever  attempted  to  answer  the  question  as 
to  where  this  atom  of  matter  and  this  particle  of  energy 
themselves  first  came  from,  how  they  happened  to  be 
floating  around  in  the  empty  spaces  of  the  universe,  and 
how,  when  they  came  together,  there  was  a  law  of  evolu- 
tion all  ready  to  guide  and  control  their  future  develop- 
ment. The  predicament  of  the  materialist,  in  other 
words,  is  exactly  that  of  the  Hindoo  philosopher,  who 
declared  that  the  earth  rested  upon  an  elephant,  and  the 
elephant  upon  a  tortoise,  but  was  so  unkind  as  to  leave 
the  tortoise,  like  Mohammed's  coffin,  hanging  suspended 
in  mid-air. 

But  not  pressing  this  point, —  which,  by  the  way,  if 
properly  developed,  is  absolutely  fatal  to  the  whole 
philosophy  of  denial  —  let  us  consider  what  this  denial 
of  God  really  means  from  the  standpoint  of  the  world  as 
it  exists  to-day.  If  theism  means  that,  behind  the  uni- 
verse, as  the  basic  reality  of  life,  there  is  an  ordering 
Intelligence  and  a  brooding  Love,  atheism  or  material- 


118  RELIGION  FOR  TO-DAY 

ism  must  mean,  as  we  have  been  seeing,  that  behind  the 
universe  there  is  not  an  ordering  Intelligence  and  not 
a  brooding  Love.  It  denies  that  there  is  any  mind  or 
being  which  is  the  cause  and  providence  of  the  universe, 
and  which  intentionally  "  produces  the  order,  beauty, 
and  harmony  thereof,  the  constant  modes  of  operation 
therein."  Nay,  it  goes  farther  and  denies  that  there 
is  any  law,  order,  or  harmony  in  existence,  or  any  con- 
stant modes  of  operation  in  the  world.  The  materialist 
asserts  that  the  universe  is  made  up  first  of  inert  matter 
and  secondly  of  unconscious  energy,  and  that  every- 
thing that  the  universe  contains  is  the  mechanical  re- 
sult of  the  constant  interaction  of  these  two  realities. 
If  there  is  any  beauty  or  order  or  harmony  in  the  pro- 
cess, it  was  not  planned  or  directed  —  planned,  that  is, 
by  no  divine  spirit  of  Intelligence  and  directed  by 
no  divine  spirit  of  Love.  If  such  order  or  harmony 
has  appeared  at  all,  it  has  come  only  as  the  result  of 
accident  or  chance,  and  is  likely  at  any  moment  to  dis- 
appear just  as  it  has  come.  It  is  here  in  this  word 
"  chance  "  that  you  come  to  the  very  heart  of  the  phi- 
losophy of  denial.  Just  as  the  essential  feature  of 
theism  is  an  overruling  Mind,  so  the  essential  feature  of 
atheism  is  chance.  Just  as  the  world,  according  to  the 
theistic  point  of  view,  is  the  result  of  a  planning  and 
creating  and  guiding  Intelligence  and  an  ever-watching 
Love,  so  the  world,  according  to  the  atheistic  point  of 
view,  is  the  result  of  mere  accident.  Just  as  the  uni- 
verse, according  to  the  man  who  believes,  is  to  be  re- 
garded as  the  "  handiwork  "  of  God,  so  the  universe, 


THE  DILEMMA  OF  DENIAL  119 

according  to  the  man  who  denies,  is  to  be  regarded  as 
a  "  fortuitous  concourse  of  atoms."  In  the  one  case, 
there  is  plan,  conscious  design,  order,  which  could  not 
have  been  otherwise  than  it  is ;  in  the  other  case,  chance, 
accident,  fortuity,  which  could  just  as  easily  have  been 
something  else  as  to  be  what  it  actually  is.  Here  is 
the  fundamental  difference  between  these  two  philoso- 
phies.1 

Now  suppose  we  test  this  theory  of  chance,  which 
is  offered  us  by  materialism  as  the  only  alternative  of 
the  theistic  hypothesis,  by  the  actual  facts  of  experi- 
ence in  so  far  as  we  know  these  facts  —  and  what  is  the 
result  ? 

Turn,  for  example,  to  the  field  of  astronomy !  Here 
do  we  find  ourselves  in  the  midst  of  a  great  system  of 
stars,  with  a  sun  at  the  centre  and  numerous  planets 
round  about.  All  of  these  planets  are  distributed  in  a 
certain  ratio  of  distance,  and  they  move  round  the 
sun  with  a  certain  velocity  exactly  proportionate  to 
their  distance  from  the  sun,  and  their  relation  to  one 
another.  These  planets  move  in  paths  of  the  same  form, 
they  are  controlled  by  the  same  laws  of  motion,  they 
receive  and  emit  light  in  the  same  way.  The  laws, 
which  are  the  constant  modes  of  planetary  operation, 
are  exceedingly  intricate,  and  yet  they  conform  to  the 
point  of  absolute  simplicity.  And  they  are  so  exact, 
and  are  obeyed  with  such  perfect  accuracy,  that 
"  we  may  go  back  to  the  time  of  Thales,  four  hundred 

i  See  Theodore  Parker's  Theism  and  Atheism,  Centenary  Edition, 
pp.  64  and  65. 


120  RELIGION  FOR  TO-DAY 

years  before  the  birth  of  Christ,  calculate  the  famous 
eclipse  of  the  moon  which  took  place  during  his  life- 
time, and  find  that  it  occurred  just  as  the  historians 
of  that  day  relate ;  and  we  may  go  forward  five  years 
or  five  hundred  years  or  five  thousand  years,  and  cal- 
culate a  future  eclipse  of  the  moon  with  the  same  preci- 
sion. Indeed  so  accurate  are  these  laws  that  an  astron- 
omer, studying  the  perturbations  of  a  planet,  may  con- 
jecture the  existence  of  another  planet  never  yet  dis- 
covered, and  then,  turning  his  telescope  to  the  calcu- 
lated point  in  the  heavens,  fix  his  eye  upon  what  the 
eye  of  man  has  never  discovered  before."  1  And  it  is 
this  perfect  system  which  the  materialist  must  assert 
is  the  result  of  chance,  and  shows  no  mind  or  purpose 
whatsoever  in  the  universe. 

Or  take  the  other  process  of  evolution  itself,  which 
is  so  often  described  as  wasteful,  blundering,  and  stupid ! 
Here,  in  the  last  analysis,  do  we  see  a  process  which 
is  as  accurate  and  beautiful  as  the  unfolding  of  a 
flower  from  leaf  to  bud,  from  bud  to  blossom,  from 
blossom  to  ripening  fruit.  See  with  what  precision  the 
inorganic  has  passed  over  into  the  organic,  the  vege- 
table into  the  animal,  and  the  animal  into  the  human. 
See  what  an  infinite  variety  of  living  forms  have  been 
produced  from  which  to  make  the  selection  of  the  best, 
and  how  each  form,  even  though  finally  rejected,  has 
played  its  part  and  done  its  work  as  an  indispensable 
member  of  the  expanding  whole.  See  how  perfectly  the 
organism  and  its  environment  have  interacted,  and  al- 

i  See  Parker's  Theism  and  A  theism,  p.  67. 


THE  DILEMMA  OF  DENIAL 

ways  for  the  ultimate  achievement  of  progress.  See 
the  marvels  of  adaptation  and  the  miracles  of  develop- 
ment. See  how  every  step  of  all  the  process  has  been 
in  its  final  result  an  onward  one,  until  at  last  the  pin- 
nacle was  reached  in  man,  who  stands  at  once  as  the 
heir  of  all  the  past  and  the  prophecy  of  all  the  future. 
See  with  what  perfection  the  survivals  have  been  made 
the  survival  of  the  fittest.  See  with  what  flawless 
beauty  the  unfolding  has  gone  on  from  one  age  to  an- 
other, until  the  human  soul  at  the  heart  of  it  all  is  dis- 
closed to  the  eye  of  heaven !  And  all  this  line  of  evolu- 
tion, you  say,  which  never  seriously  deviated  from  its 
appointed  path  nor  swerved  from  the  direction  of  its 
goal,  is  nothing  but  the  result  of  accident  and  chance, 
and  might  just  as  well  have  ended  with  the  dinosaurs 
and  mastodons  and  saurians  of  the  heroic  age,  or  even 
reverted  to  the  protozoa  in  the  primeval  slime,  as  have 
continued  onward  and  upward  to  the  glory  of  creative 
manhood ! 

Or  take  the  history  of  man  himself  —  a  wonderful 
pageant  of  struggle  and  of  triumph.  See  how,  through 
all  the  ages,  men  have  slowly  been  fighting  their  way 
upward  from  barbarism  to  civilisation.  See  how  the 
family  has  developed  into  the  village,  the  village  into 
the  city,  the  city  into  the  state,  and  the  state  into  the 
nation.  See  how  kings  have  battled  with  kings,  and 
races  warred  with  races.  See  how  empires  have  tum- 
bled and  kingdoms  fallen  to  ruin.  See  how  nations 
have  been  extinguished  and  even  races  blotted  out.  See 
how  saints  have  lived  and  suffered,  prophets  spoken  in 


122  RELIGION  FOR  TO-DAY 

vain  for  truth,  poets  dreamed  fruitlessly  their  lovely  vi- 
sions, and  martyrs  died  their  agonising  deaths.  See 
how  the  strong  have  crushed  the  weak,  and  the  rich 
ground  the  faces  of  the  poor.  See  how  wealth  and  lux- 
ury and  ease  have  rotted  the  lives  of  men  and  sent  them 
to  untimely  graves.  See  how  great  clouds  of  darkness 
have  overwhelmed  the  light,  wrong  triumphed  over 
right,  and  error  risen  victorious  over  truth.  And  see, 
too,  how  through  all  this  welter  and  chaos  of  human 
passion,  the  progress  of  mankind  has  still  been  on- 
ward and  upward  forever,  light  has  still  shone  out  of 
darkness,  and  truth  still  inherited  "  the  eternal  years 
of  God."  The  history  of  manhood  may  be  the  result 
of  accident,  and  may  perhaps  be  explained  on  the  basis 
of  chance,  but  if  so,  then  miracles  have  never  ceased, 
and  the  ways  of  fate  are  beyond  all  understanding. 

Here,  now,  are  only  a  few  suggestions  as  to  what  it 
means  to  test  the  philosophy  of  denial  with  the  facts 
of  life,  and  is  it  not  already  evident  that  we  are  face  to 
face  with  an  embarrassing  dilemma?  It  may  be,  of 
course,  that  all  these  wonderful  phenomena,  which  I 
have  described,  are  the  results  not  of  intelligence  but  of 
chance.  It  may  be  that  it  was  chance  which  organised 
the  solar  universe  so  delicately  and  so  accurately  that, 
as  Richard  Watson  Gilder  puts  it  in  his  little  poem, 
"  The  Sun  Dial,"  if  the  shadow  on  the  dial  varied  even 
by  "  the  width  of  a  child's  eyelash," 

"  The  seas  would  devour  the  mountains, 
And  the  stars  together  crash." 


THE  DILEMMA  OF  DENIAL 

It  may  be  that  it  was  chance  that  controlled,  from  be- 
ginning to  end,  the  process  of  evolution,  so  that,  as 
William  Watson  puts  it,  in  his  poem,  "  The  Hope  of 
the  World,"  it  was 

"  Some  random  throw 
Of  heedless  Nature's  die 
That  from  estate  so  low 
Uplifted  man  so  high. 
Through  untold  aeons  vast 
She  let  him  lurk  and  cower; 
'T  would  seem  he  climbed  at  last, 
In  mere  fortuitous  hour, 
Child  of  a  thousand  chances,  'neath  the  indifferent  sky." 

It  may  be  that  it  was  chance  that  was  behind  the 
strange  and  wonderful  march  of  historic  events  through 
the  uncounted  ages  of  the  past.  All  this  may  be  true ! 
But  I  for  one  must  confess  that  I  find  it  harder  to  be- 
lieve this  interpretation  of  the  facts,  than  to  believe, 
in  the  face  of  such  blunders  and  imperfections  as  the 
world  may  seem  to  contain,  that  God  lives  and  controls 
the  progress  of  creation.  Grant  all  the  difficulties  that 
the  materialist  puts  in  the  way  of  your  theistic  faith. 
Grant  that,  from  one  point  of  view,  the  world  seems  in- 
complete, imperfect,  cruel,  wasteful,  stupid.  Grant 
that  it  would  indeed  seem  as  though  a  divine  and  eternal 
Intelligence,  all-powerful  and  all-loving,  could  have 
made  a  better  job  of  it.  Grant  all  these  objections, 
I  say!  And  yet,  when  you  contrast  these  difficulties, 
which  are  involved  in  the  belief  in  God  as  the  ruling 
principle  of  the  universe,  with  the  difficulties  which  are 


RELIGION  FOR  TO-DAY 

involved  in  the  alternative  belief  in  blind  and  heedless 
chance  as  the  ruling  principle  of  the  universe,  I  contend 
that  the  theistic  faith  is  simplicity  itself.  Say  what 
you  will,  when  I  look  at  the  heavens  above  my  head, 
some  day  when  the  sun  is  high  in  a  sky  of  perfect  blue, 
or  some  night  when  a  million  stars  are  shining  in  the 
blackness  like  a  million  candles,  I  know  that  the  Psalm- 
ist was  near  the  truth  when  he  said,  "  The  heavens  de- 
clare the  glory  of  God,  and  the  firmament  showeth  his 
handiwork;  day  unto  day  uttereth  speech,  and  night 
unto  night  showeth  knowledge."  Say  what  you  will, 
when  I  meditate  upon  the  story  of  evolution,  and  con- 
sider 

"  A  fire-mist  and  a  planet, 
A  crystal  and  a  cell, 
A  jellyfish  and  a  saurian, 
And  caves  where  the  cave-men  dwell; 
Then  a  sense  of  law  and  beauty, 
And  a  face  turned  from  the  clod " 

I  know  that  the  poet  was  right  when  he  declared  that  we 
should  call  this  not  merely  evolution  but  God.  Say 
what  you  will,  when  I  read  in  the  silent  watches  of  the 
night  the  magic  story  of  mankind,  read  how  men  have 
lived  and  suffered  and  died,  borne  witness  to  the  truth 
and  perished,  fought  for  righteousness  and  expired, 
struck  a  blow  for  freedom  and  disappeared, —  and  then 
consider  what  is  the  outcome  of  it  all,  I  know  that  the 
poet  is  again  right  when  he  declares  that  in  and  through 
and  over  all  our  human  life  is  a  "  Power  that  makes  for 
righteousness  " !  I  see  the  difficulties  in  the  way  of  be- 


THE  DILEMMA  OF  DENIAL  125 

lieving  in  God,  but  I  see  also  the  difficulties  in  the  way 
of  not  believing  in  God.  Neither  theory  answers  all 
questions;  neither  hypothesis  satisfies  all  doubts.  But 
when  you  put  God  over  against  chance,  Intelligence 
over  against  accident,  Love  over  against  blind  energy, 
as  the  explanation  of  the  facts  of  life,  then  I  for  one 
find  it  easier,  simpler,  more  rational  to  believe  in  God. 

When  you  can  show  me  that  a  man  can  throw  down 
upon  a  table  a  handful  of  wheels  and  springs,  and  that 
some  day  by  chance  they  will  fall  into  the  shape  and 
fashion  of  a  watch,  and  proceed  to  keep  accurate  time ; 
when  you  can  show  me  that  a  painter  can  take  his 
colours  and  throw  them  upon  a  canvas,  and  some  day  by 
chance  they  will  fall  into  the  perfect  beauty  of  a  Ra- 
phael Madonna,  or  a  Corot  landscape;  when  you  can 
show  me  that  a  printer  in  his  printing-room  can  throw  a 
font  of  type  upon  the  floor,  and  the  letters  some  day 
will  fall  by  chance  into  a  Shakespeare's  Hamlet  or  a 
Milton's  Paradise  Lost;  when  you  can  show  me  that  an 
army  with  its  brigades,  regiments,  and  companies  can 
march  into  battle  with  no  single  officer  in  command  of 
any  single  body  of  men,  and  can  some  day  by  chance 
win  a  victory  over  a  Bonaparte  or  a  Marlborough; 
when  you  can  show  me  that  these  things  are  possible, 
then  I  will  at  least  be  ready  to  believe  that  this  universe 
in  which  we  live  may  possibly  be  the  product  of  acci- 
dent and  not  of  a  divine  Intelligence  and  Love.  How 
impressive  was  the  recorded  testimony  of  Alfred  Russel 
Wallace !  Here  was  one  of  the  greatest  scientists  of  our 
age  —  a  man  to  whom  all  the  pages  of  human  knowledge 


126  RELIGION  FOR  TO-DAY 

were  open  and  by  whom  they  were  carefully  read  —  a 
man  forever  immortal  as  the  co-discoverer  with  Darwin 
of  the  truth  of  evolution.  In  his  old  age,  as  the 
ripest  fruit  of  all  his  learning,  he  published  a  great  book 
entitled  The  World  of  Life;  and  he  declared,  as  the 
final  conclusion  of  all  his  studies,  that  this  world  of 
life  is  "  a  manifestation  of  creative  power,  directive 
mind,  and  ultimate  purpose."  And  this,  not  because 
it  had  been  proved,  but  simply  because  it  was  sensible ! 
Such  is  the  dilemma  of  denial,  as  illustrated  by 
the  thought  of  God.  The  philosophy  of  denial  shows 
us  that  there  are  very  real  difficulties  in  believing  in 
God ;  but  it  shows  us  also  that  there  are  greater  diffi- 
culties in  not  believing  in  God.  And  what  is  true  here 
of  the  thought  of  God  is  true  also  of  all  the  other  prob- 
lems of  existence.  Nothing  is  easier  than  to  show  that 
it  is  impossible  for  a  reasonable  man  to  believe  in  im- 
mortality, unless  it  be  to  show  that  it  is  impossible  for 
a  reasonable  man  not  to  believe  in  immortality.  Noth- 
ing is  more  certain  than  the  unreasonableness  of  believ- 
ing in  the  freedom  of  the  will,  unless  it  be  the  unreason- 
ableness of  not  believing  in  the  freedom  of  the  will. 
Nothing  is  more  ridiculous  than  belief,  unless  it  be  un- 
belief. You  satisfy  yourself,  in  the  face  of  all  the  con- 
trary facts  of  life,  that  you  cannot  accept  these  great 
articles  of  faith  —  you  fortify  your  doubts  and  but- 
tress your  denials  —  and  then  comes  to  you  the  experi- 
ence that  came  to  the  Bishop  in  Robert  Browning's 
poem,  "  Bishop  Blougram's  Apology." — "  How  can  we 


THE  DILEMMA  OF  DENIAL  127 

guard  our  unbelief?"  queries  the  Bishop;  "how  make 
it  bear  fruit  to  us?  " 

"  Just  when  we  are  safest,  there's  a  sunset  touch, 
A  fancy  from  a  flower-bell,  some  one's  death, 
A  chorus  ending  from  Euripides  — 
And  that's  enough  for  fifty  hopes  and  fears, 
As  old  and  new  at  once  as  nature's  self, 
To  rap  and  knock  and  enter  in  our  soul, 
Take  hands  and  dance  there,  a  fantastic  ring, 
Round  the  ancient  idol,  on  his  base  again, 
The  grand  Perhaps." 

It  must  by  now  be  evident  what  I  mean  by  the  dilemma 
of  denial.  I  mean  simply  that  in  trying  to  save  us  from 
the  very  real  difficulties  involved  in  believing  in  God,  and 
immortality,  and  human  freedom,  the  philosophy  of  de- 
nial finds  itself  confronted  by  the  dilemma  of  getting 
us  into  worse  difficulties  than  those  from  which  it  would 
extricate  us.  It  is  hard  to  believe  these  things,  but 
it  is  harder  not  to  believe  them.  And  if  you  ask  how 
it  is  that  many  of  the  greatest  scientists  have  allowed 
themselves  to  be  trapped  by  this  dilemma,  you  will  find 
that  it  is  only  because  they  have  not  been  faithful  to 
their  own  profound  principles  of  scientific  inquiry.  For 
what  do  they  do  in  their  laboratories,  when  they  have 
a  set  of  facts  before  them  which  they  are  trying  to  ex- 
plain? They  adopt  one  theory  after  another  as  prob- 
able explanations  of  these  facts.  Each  one  has  its 
difficulties  —  and  they  choose  the  one  which  has  the 
fewest  difficulties  as  the  one  which  has  the  highest  de- 


128  RELIGION  FOR  TO-DAY 

gree  of  probable  truth.  If  this  theory,  like  the  others, 
still  has  difficulties,  then  the  scientist  assumes,  not  that 
the  theory  is  untrue,  but  that  his  vision  is  scant  and 
his  knowledge  limited,  and  that  with  deeper  vision  and 
wider  knowledge  the  difficulties  will  disappear.  So  with 
these  great  hopes  of  religion.  The  theories  of  God  and 
immortality  and  the  rest  have  their  difficulties ;  but  they 
explain  the  known  facts  of  life  better  than  any  other 
theories  which  have  ever  been  conceived  by  the  mind  of 
man,  and  therefore  have  the  highest  degree  of  probable 
truth.  If  the  difficulties  seem  great,  we  must  remember 
that  finite  minds  are  here  confronting  infinite  realities, 
and  that  eyes  which  can  see  only  a  little  way  are  gazing 
into  infinite  distances;  and  that,  if  we  could  know  all 
and  see  to  the  end,  the  difficulties  might  melt  away. 
We  must  remember  that  eternal  light  is  being  reflected 
through  temporal  minds,  and  therefore  is  stained,  dis- 
torted, dimmed,  as  the  sunlight  which  struggles  faintly 
through  a  dusty  window.  Whenever  I  am  tempted  to 
be  troubled  because  I  cannot  answer  all  the  questions 
which  are  raised  up  by  my  belief  in  God,  I  think  first 
of  the  difficulties  that  are  raised  by  my  denial  of  God ; 
and  secondly  I  think  of  those  glorious  lines  from 
Shelley's  "Adonais": 

"  The  One  remains,  the  many  change  and  pass ; 
Heaven's  light  forever  shines,  Earth's  shadows  fly; 
Life,  like  a  dome  of  many-coloured  glass, 
Stains  the  white  radiance  of  Eternity, 
Until  Death  tramples  it  to  fragments. 


THE  DILEMMA  OF  DENIAL  129 

"  That  Light  whose  smile  kindles  the  Universe, 
That  Beauty  in  which  all  things  work  and  move, 
That  Benediction,  which  the  eclipsing  curse 
Of  birth  can  quench  not,  that  maintaining  Love 
Which  through  the  web  of  being  blindly  wove 
By  man  and  beast  and  earth  and  air  and  sea, 
Burns  bright  or  dim,  as  each  are  mirrors  of 
The  fire  for  which  all  thirst,  now  beams  on  me, 
Consuming  the  last  clouds  of  cold  mortality." 


IS  GOD  A  PERSONALITY? 

THE  question  as  to  whether  God  is  a  personality  or 
not,  is  one  which  seems  far  removed  from  the  realities 
>  of  human  life  and  the  practical  problems  of  every  day 
existence.  We  are  tempted  to  protest  that  this  prob- 
lem is  a  pure  matter  of  philosophical  speculation,  and 
that  it  makes  not  the  slightest  difference  to  our  moral 
and  spiritual  interests  as  individuals  whether  it  is  an- 
swered in  the  affirmative  or  in  the  negative.  What  of 
it,  if  God  is  a  personality?  And  what  of  it  also,  if  he 
is  not? 

At  first  sight  it  may  seem  as  though  this  protest 
against  the  remote  and  inconsequential  character  of 
our  subject  were  well-founded.  If  we  will  only  pause 
for  a  moment,  however,  before  giving  expression  to 
our  impatience,  and  look  into  this  matter  with  a  little 
sympathy  and  care,  I  am  positive  that  we  shall  find  that 
this  inquiry  as  to  whether  God  is  a  personality  or  not 
is  one  of  the  most  vital  and  important  to  which  we  can 
possibly  give  our  attention.  For  upon  the  answer  to 
this  question  there  depend  in  no  small  measure  the 
validity  and  permanence  of  all  that  we  have  come  to 
mean  by  religion.  If  God  is  not  a  person,  if  the  di- 
vine spirit  in  whom  we  live  and  move  and  have  our 
being  is  not  personal  as  we  are  personal,  if  the  funda- 
mental reality  which  is  in  all  and  through  all  and  over 
all  cannot  be  addressed  by  the  personal  pronoun  and 

130 


IS  GOD  A  PERSONALITY?  131 

cannot  be  accurately  described  as  a  Father  and  a 
Friend,  then  why  should  we  build  our  churches,  or  speak 
our  prayers,  or  join  in  our  public  services  of  worship, 
or  do  the  deeds  of  righteousness  and  love?  What  is  a 
prayer  but  a  mockery,  if  there  is  nobody  who  listens  to 
the  words  we  utter  ?  What  is  a  church  but  a  monument 
to  superstition,  if  there  is  nobody  who  cares  what  is 
done  before  its  altars?  What  are  the  sacrifices  of  the 
prophets  and  the  apostles  and  the  martyrs  but  so  much 
waste,  if  there  is  nobody  on  whose  behalf  and  for  whose 
sake  the  sacrifices  are  paid?  The  thought  of  God  as  a 
personality  is  a  necessary  condition  of  everything  that 
is  contained  within  the  field  of  religious  experience. 
If  this  thought  can  be  justified,  then  every  idea  and 
practice  of  religion  can  be  justified  against  the  most 
violent  assaults  of  its  enemies ;  but  if  this  thought  can- 
not be  justified,  then  the  whole  fabric  of  religion  must 
tumble  like  a  house  of  cards.  Professor  Hocking,  of 
Harvard  University,  sums  it  all  up  in  a  single  sentence 
in  his  recent  book  on  The  Meaning  of  God  in  Human 
Experience,  when  he  says,  "  The  alternative  to  the 
thought  of  God  as  Person  is  the  thought  of  him  as  Sub- 
stance, as  Energy,  and  chiefly  as  Law."  Just  stop  and 
consider  for  a  moment  what  it  would  mean  for  us  to 
try  to  obey  the  will  of  Substance,  or  love  Energy, 
or  worship  Law,  and  you  will  have  some  idea  at  least 
of  how  near  this  question  of  the  personality  of  God 
really  comes  to  the  heart  of  religion.  We  are  wasting 
no  time,  we  are  engaging  in  no  vain  speculation,  we  are 
wandering  not  far  from  the  basic  realities  of  life,  in 


: 


RELIGION  FOR  TO-DAY 

seeking  to  discover  what  reason  we  have  for  thinking 
of  God  as  a  person  and  worshipping  him  in  very  truth 
as  "  our  Father  who  (is)  in  heaven  "! 

As  our  very  first  step  in  the  discussion  of  the  prob- 
lem which  is  before  us,  'as  in  the  discussion  of  every 
problem  of  which  I  have  any  knowledge,  it  is  important 
that  we  should  define  the  terms  which  we  are  using,  so 
that  we  may  not  become  involved  in  unnecessary  nuV 
nderstanding  and  confusion.  ,Before  we  ask,  in  other 
words,  if  God  is  a  personality,  we  must  make  it  per- 
fectly clear  as  to  what  we  mean  by  personality. 

As  ordinarily  used,  the  word  "  person,"  or  "  per- 
sonality," has  a  material  or  physical  content.  When 
we  think  or  speak  of  a  certain  person,  we  always  have 
in  mind  a  hping  ^*ho  has  a  definite  form  and  shape,  and 
occupies  a-  specific  locality  in  space.  We  distinguish 
this  person  from  all  other  persons  by  certain  character- 
istics which  are  distinctive  of  his  physical  appearance, 
such  as  the  colour  of  his  hair,  the  shape  of  his  nose,  and 
the  outline  of  his  figure.  This  person  is  subject  to  all 
sorts  of  restrictions  and  limitations,  and  is  exposed 
to  all  sorts  of  perils  and  disasters.  He  is  handsome 
or  ugly,  he  is  well  or  sick,  he  is  whole  or  maimed,  he  is 
living  or  dead.  These  are  the  elements,  wholly  out- 
ward and  physical  in  their  nature,  as  you  can  see,  which 
go  to  make  up  the  meaning  of  the  word  "  person  "  as 
it  is  used  in  common  parlance.  This  interpretation  is 
seen  in  its  extreme  form  when  I  speak  of  "  my  person  " 
with  reference  only  to  my  body,  or  use  the  stereotyped 
legal  phrase  of  "  crimes  against  the  person,"  with  spe- 


IS  GOD  A  PERSONALITY?  133 

cific  reference  to  attacks  upon  one's  physical  integrity. 

This,  I  take  it,  is  the  common  idea  of  personality; 
and  right  here  do  we  find  the  explanation  of  the  fact 
that  there  was  never  before  a  time  in  the  whole  history 
of  human  thought,  perhaps,  when  men  found  it  so  diffi- 
cult to  conceive  of  God  as  a  personality  as  they  do  to- 
day. The  Greeks  had  no  trouble  in  matching  up  their 
idea  of  God  with  this  understanding  of  what  is  meant 
by  personality.  They  thought  of  their  gods  frankly 
and  openly  after  the  analogy  of  human  beings.  Zeus, 
Hera,  Apollo,  Aphrodite,  Hephaestos,  all  the  inhabi- 
tants of  Olympus,  had  separate  and  distinct  individu- 
alities, and  walked  and  talked  with  men  as  easily  and 
naturally  as  men  walked  and  talked  with  one  another. 
The  same  thing  is  true  also  of  the  ancient  Hebrews. 
We  find  in  the  Old  Testament  one  deity  in  place  of  many 
deities,  and  this  Jehovah,  as  he  is  called,  is  a  much 
loftier  being,  from  the  moral  point  of  view,  than  any 
that  can  be  found  in  the  Greek  or  Roman  pantheon. 
But  he  is  still  a  god  who  can  walk  in  the  Garden  of 
Eden  like  a  tired  man  "  in  the  cool  of  the  day,"  talk  to 
Moses  upon  Sinai  like  the  commander  of  the  host,  and 
appear  to  Isaiah  in  the  Temple  like  a  great  king  upon 
his  throne. 

Now  all  such  conceptions  as  these  have  of  course  be- 
come impossible  at  this  late  day.  We  think  of  God,  if 
we  think  of  him  at  all,  as  a  kind  of  spirit  which  is  im- 
manent in  the  things  of  sense,  but  which  has  no  such  out- 
ward or  visible  form  as  we  have  learned  to  associate 
with  the  idea  of  human  personality.  I  suppose  that 


134  RELIGION  FOR  TO-DAY 

there  are  still  some  people  in  the  world  to-day  who 
think  of  God,  as  most  children  certainly  think  of  him, 
as  a  great  ruler  who  has  hands  and  feet,  and  speaks 
with  a  voice,  and  looks  upon  the  universe  with  eyes,  and 
hears  the  prayers  of  men  with  ears.  But  most  of  us 
have  certainly  passed  beyond  these  crude  conceptions 
for  good  and  all.  We  may  think  of  God  after  the  like- 
ness of  a  man,  and  address  him  as  we  would  address  a 
fellow-being  —  but  this  is  only  because  we  are  unable 
to  think  and  speak  in  any  other  way.  At  heart,  we 
know  that  God,  if  he  exists  at  all,  is  spirit,  and  thus 
cannot  rightly  be  conceived  in  any  way  after  the  phys- 
ical appearance  of  a  human  being.  "  The  advance  of 
religion,"  says  Professor  Hocking,  with  perfect  ac- 
curacy, in  the  book  to  which  I  have  just  referred,  "  has 
been  very  largely  from  personality  to  impersonality." 
As  our  knowledge  of  the  universe  has  increased  and  our 
conception  of  life  has  widened  and  deepened,  the  idea 
of  God  has  become  in  our  minds  ever  more  indefinite,  in- 
tangible, almost  unreal,  as  it  has  become  ever  more  spir- 
itual, until  to-day  we  have  come  to  the  point  of  denying 
that  God  is  a  personality  altogether.  He  is  Energy,  he 
is  Law,  he  is  Spirit,  he  is  an  all-pervasive  Presence,  if 
you  will,  but  he  is  not  a  person  as  we  commonly  employ 
that  word  in  our  daily  intercourse  with  men.  Indeed, 
it  would  seem,  as  Professor  Hocking  intimates,  that 
"  impersonality  "  is  the  fundamental  attribute  of  God, 
as  he  is  understood  and  interpreted  and  approached 
at  the  present  day. 

Here,  now,  is  a  very  real  difficulty  in  the  way  of  any 


IS  GOD  A  PERSONALITY?  135 

favourable  answer  to  our  question,  Is  God  a  Personal- 
ity ?  —  but  it  is  a  difficulty  which  is  involved  not  in  our 
conception  of  divinity,  but  in  our  conception  of  person- 
ality. Thus  far  we  have  been  interpreting  personality 
in  material  or  physical  terms.  But  now  I  want  to  ask 
if  this  is  really  the  way  in  which  personality  should  be 
defined?  Is  this  idea  of  personality  as  having  to  do 
with  the  form  and  features  of  a  human  body  the  only 
one  that  can  be  accepted,  or  indeed  is  it  one  which 
can  rightly  be  accepted  at  all?  Is  this  really  what  we 
mean  by  "  personality,"  or  is  it  only  what  we  think 
we  mean  in  the  free-and-easy  language  of  the  street? 

A  suggestion  that  this  interpretation  of  the  word  is 
very  far  from  being  either  definite  or  fundamental,  is 
given  by  the  fact  that  rocks  and  trees,  and  especially 
animals  have  all  the  characteristics  which  we  have  just 
been  associating  with  a  human  personality,  and  yet  we 
never  think  of  regarding  them  as  persons.  In  order 
to  show,  however,  with  perfect  clearness  how  remote 
is  the  true  conception  of  personality  from  the  body, 
and  everything  pertaining  to  the  material  attributes 
and  relationships  of  the  body,  I  want  to  stay  right 
here  in  our  own  field  of  human  experience,  and  show 
what  we  mean  by  the  word  "  personality,"  when  we  use 
it  carefully  and  scientifically. 

In  the  year,  1811,  there  was  living  in  the  wilderness 
of  western  Pennsylvania,  a  young  girl  by  the  name  of 
Mary  Reynolds.  One  morning,  long  after  her  habit- 
ual time  for  rising,  she  was  found  lying  in  a  deep  sleep, 
from  which  it  was  impossible  to  rouse  her.  After  some 


136  RELIGION  FOR  TO-DAY 

eighteen  or  twenty  hours,  she  awakened  naturally,  but 
in  a  wholly  unnatural  state  of  consciousness.  She  knew 
nothing,  remembered  nothing,  recognised  nothing.  She 
had  apparently  never  seen  her  parents,  brothers,  sisters, 
and  friends  before  —  had  never  known  them  —  was  not 
aware  that  such  persons  had  ever  existed.  To  the 
scenes  by  which  she  was  surrounded  —  the  house,  the 
fields,  the  mountains  —  she  was  a  total  stranger.  She 
was  even  ignorant  of  all  that  she  had  been  taught  from 
childhood  —  she  could  not  speak  or  even  connect  words 
with  things.  She  had  not  the  slightest  consciousness 
that  she  had  ever  existed  previous  to  the  moment  in 
which  she  awoke  from  her  mysterious  slumber.  "  In 
a  word,  she  was  an  infant,  just  born,  yet  born  in  a  con- 
dition of  maturity." 

The  change  in  her  mental  state,  however,  was  not 
the  only  transformation  which  had  taken  place.  More 
remarkable  even  than  her  ignorance  was  her  altered 
disposition.  Hitherto  she  had  been  taciturn  and  re- 
served, with  a  marked  tendency  toward  melancholy  and 
morbid  introspection.  Now  she  was  cheerful  and  buoy- 
ant to  an  extreme  degree.  She  was  extravagantly  fond 
of  company,  and  yet  just  as  fond  of  the  world  of  nature, 
to  which  she  had  hitherto  been  indifferent.  In  all  of 
her  emotions,  as  well  as  in  her  thought,  she  "  was  totally 
and  absolutely  changed." 

This  strange  condition  of  new  birth,  if  I  may  call 
it  such,  continued  for  about  five  weeks,  during  which 
the  girl  came  to  know  her  family  and  friends,  and  was 
taught  again  to  read  and  write.  At  the  end  of  this 


IS  GOD  A  PERSONALITY?  137 

time,  however,  there  came  another  period  of  protracted 
slumber,  and  when  at  last  she  awoke,  she  was  herself 
again.  She  instantly  recognised  her  brothers  and 
sisters  as  though  nothing  had  happened,  and  immedi- 
ately took  up  the  thread  of  the  old  life  just  where  it 
had  been  dropped  five  weeks  before.  She  now  had  all 
the  knowledge  which  she  had  possessed  previous  to  the 
strange  interval  of  transformation,  but  not  the  slight- 
est trace  of  a  recollection  of  what  had  happened  in 
this  interval.  She  was  only  surprised  that  in  what  to 
her  was  the  space  of  a  single  night,  so  many  things  had 
changed,  especially  in  the  outer  world  of  nature.  And 
of  course,  along  with  the  rest,  her  natural  disposition 
returned  just  as  it  had  been  before. 

All  went  well  for  a  brief  time,  when  again  there  came 
the  mysterious  slumber,  and  the  girl  awoke  in  her  sec- 
ond state,  and  took  up  her  new  life  just  where  she  had 
left  it  when  she  had  passed  from  that  state  some  weeks 
before,  and  again  not  knowing  anything  that  had  in- 
tervened between  these  two  periods  of  sleep.  And  so 
began  a  long  series  of  alternations  from  one  state  to  an- 
other, which  continued  at  intervals  of  varying  length 
for  fifteen  or  sixteen  years,  but  finally  ceased  when  she 
attained  the  age  of  thirty-five  or  thirty-six,  leaving  the 
girl  permanently  in  her  second  state.  In  this  she  re- 
mained without  any  further  change  during  the  last 
quarter  of  a  century  of  her  life. 

I  have  referred  somewhat  at  length  to  this  story  of 
Mary  Reynolds,  which  is  told  in  detail  in  Professor 
James's  Principles  of  Psychology,  for  the  reason  that 


138  RELIGION  FOR  TO-DAY 

it  is  a  perfect  illustration  of  what  is  really  meant  by 
personality.  Here  do  we  see  that,  from  the  psycho- 
logical standpoint,  at  least,  personality  has  nothing  to 
do  with  the  body  or  any  of  its  parts.  During  all  of 
the  successive  alternations  of  these  fifteen  or  sixteen 
years,  Mary  Reynolds  was  exactly  the  same  person,  if 
I  may  so  express  it,  so  far  as  her  face  and  figure  were 
concerned.  She  had  the  same  hair,  the  same  eyes,  the 
same  voice,  the  same  hands  and  feet,  the  same  facial 
outline  and  physical  form,  in  the  one  state  as  in  the 
other.  A  person  looking  at  her  mere  personal  appear- 
ance, without  any  knowledge  of  her  mental  condition 
or  emotional  reactions,  could  have  no  means  of  know- 
ing whether  she  was  in  the  first  state  or  in  the  second. 
And  yet  psychologists  agree  that  this  is  a  case  of 
"  dual  personality  " —  that  right  here,  in  this  same 
identical  physical  organism,  there  are  two  persons  in- 
stead of  one.  At  one  moment  Mary  Reynolds  was 
Mary  Reynolds ;  at  the  next  moment,  Mary  Reynolds 
was  not  Mary  Reynolds,  but  somebody  else.  Here  in 
the  same  body,  at  intervals  of  a  few  weeks,  were 
two  persons,  separate  and  distinct.  And  the  remark- 
able fact  is  that  nobody  thought  of  confusing  these 
two  persons,  or  ever  failed  to  recognise  these  two 
persons,  merely  because  the  physical  features  were  the 
same  in  both  cases.  All  of  which  means,  does  it  not,  if 
it  means  anything  at  all,  that  by  personality  we  most 
certainly  do  not  mean  a  human  body  or  any  of  the 
physical  features  of  a  human  body  ? 

The  case  of  Mary  Reynolds,  like  every  similar  case 


IS  GOD  A  PERSONALITY?  139 

of  "  dual  personality,"  proves  conclusively,  whatever 
else  it  may  or  may  not  prove,  that  a  person,  funda- 
mentally speaking,  is  not  a  material  figure  which  occu- 
pies so  much  space,  presents  a  certain  outline,  and 
moves  in  a  certain  way  —  that  a  person  is  not  some- 
thing material  at  all,  but  something  spiritual.  A  per- 
sonality is  not  the  body,  but  the  life  within  the  body, 
the  soul  which  inhabits  the  body.  The  person  is  the 
Self,  the  Ego,  the  I  —  that  inward  centre  of  conscious 
spiritual  life  which  thinks  and  wills  and  loves  —  which 
thrills  the  pressure  of  the  hand,  kindles  the  light  in  the 
eye,  and  moves  the  lips  with  ordered  speech  —  which 
remains  steadfast  and  unafraid  while  the  body  is  bruised 
by  accident  or  ravaged  by  disease  —  which  can  even 
take  the  body,  like  a  tool  to  be  used,  or  a  weapon  to 
be  broken,  or  a  sacrifice  to  be  offered  up  for  the  sake 
of  the  dreams  and  visions  of  the  spirit,  and  throw  it 
carelessly  away  —  which  fills  the  body  with  life  while  it 
is  present,  and  leaves  it  cold  and  dead  as  clay  when 
it  departs.  It  is  true,  of  course,  that  it  is  the  almost 
unvarying  rule  for  a  single  body  to  be  the  tool  or  me- 
dium or  tenement  of  a  single  personality,  or  self  —  and 
thus  have  we  been  tempted  into  the  easy  error  of  think- 
ing that  the  body  is  itself  the  personality.  But  it  only 
needs  an  exceptional  incident  like  that  of  Mary  Rey- 
nolds, as  indeed  it  would  seem  to  have  needed  only  the 
very  commonplace  incident  of  death,  to  show  us  our 
mistake.  Personality,  at  bottom,  is  not  material  but 
spiritual.  A  person,  in  the  last  analysis,  is  not  a  body, 
but  a  soul!  All  of  which  is  clearly  enough  revealed, 


140  RELIGION  FOR  TO-DAY 

even  in  our  common  speech  of  every  day,  when  we  say, 
This  man  has  personality !  —  by  which  we  mean  that 
he  has  that  peculiar  spiritual  power  which  leaps  like 
flame  from  soul  to  soul,  and  makes  a  man  a  leader 
of  his  kind! 

Now  here  is  what  I  believe  to  be  the  essence  of 
personality.  And  right  here  do  we  find  how  far  we 
were  from  the  truth  when  we  defined  personality  in 
material  and  physical  terms,  and  how  unreal  therefore 
was  our  difficulty  in  regarding  God  as  a  personality. 
Xrod,  by  the  very  definition  of  his  being,  is  a  spirit.  So 
also  is  a  person,  by  the  very  definition  of  his  being,  a 
spirit  likewise.  And  since  spirit,  so  far  as  we  have 
ever  been  able  to  discover,  is  always  one  and  the  same 
thing  in  this  great  universe  of  ours,  what  could  be  more 
natural,  or  indeed  inevitable,  than  that  God  should  be 
a  person  after  the  analogy  of  a  human  personality? 
May  it  not  be  true,  in  other  words,  that  in  the  realm  of 
theology  exactly  as  in  the  realm  of  geometry,  things 
equal  to  the  same  thing  are  equal  to  each  other?  Cer- 
tainly this  is  possible.  There  is  no  initial  difficulty  in 
the  way  of  this  interpretation  of  divine  personality  as 
there  was  in  the  way  of  the  other.  It  is  entirely  reason- 
able to  believe,  as  it  was  not  reasonable  to  believe  in  the 
earlier  instance,  that  God  may  be  a  person.  This  much 
is  at  least  established  by  pur  argument  up  to  this 
point.  Now  it  only  remains  to  show  that  there  is  very 
good  evidence  for  believing  that  this  is  actually  the 
case  — that  God  not  only  may  be  a  person  but  is  a 
person  —  to  complete  my  argument. 


IS  GOD  A  PERSONALITY?  141 

In  order  to  see  with  perfect  clearness  the  indications 
that  God  is  a  person  exactly  as  we  are  persons, 
it  will  be  necessary  to  consider  what  are  the  distinctive 
marks  of  personality.  Why  do  I  assume,  for  example, 
that  you  are  a  personality,  as  a  stone,  or  a  tree,  or  a 
dog,  is  not  a  personality?  This  question  is  answered 
by  showing  that  you  display  certain  characteristics  in 
the  course  of  your  individual  activity,  which  are  not 
displayed  by  the  stone,  or  the  tree,  or  the  dog,  and 
which  clearly  indicate,  as  nothing  in  the  existence  of 
these  objects  indicates,  the  essentially  spiritual  basis 
of  your  life.  Now  if  God  is  a  personality,  as  you  are 
a  personality  —  and  that  is  the  thing  that  we  want  to 
prove,  if  possible !  —  then  it  is  reasonable  to  suppose, 
is  it  not,  that  his  spirit  will  display  the  same  distinctive 
characteristics  as  your  spirit.  Or  —  to  reverse  the 
argument !  —  if  we  can  find  in  the  material  universe  the 
same  characteristic  marks  of  the  spirit  that  we  find 
in  the  case  of  a  human  body,  then  we  have  a  right  to 
believe,  have  we  not,  that  in  this  universe,  as  in  this 
body,  there  is  immanent  exactly  the  same  type  of  per- 
sonality. The  same  facts,  in  other  words,  must  lead  us 
back  to  the  same  conclusion.  If  the  divine  spirit  acts 
the  same  as  the  human  spirit,  then  we  may  justly  say 
that  the  one  is  as  much  personal  as  the  other. 

I  turn  therefore  to  the  question,  now,  as  to  what  are 
the  distinctive  marks  of  personality?  And  in  reply 
I  state  that  these  marks  are  three  in  number. 

In  the  old  days  of  the  famous  Eden  Musee,  on 
Street,  there  was  located  in  one  of  the  upper  rooms 


RELIGION  FOR  TO-DAY 

a  world-famous  mechanical  chess-player.  Here,  before 
a  chess-board,  there  sat  a  large  waxen  figure,  robed 
without  in  impressive  Turkish  garments,  and  filled 
within  with  elaborate  machinery.  This  machinery,  it 
was  said,  was  so  cleverly  devised,  as  to  enable  the  figure 
to  play  a  game  of  chess  which  would  usually  defeat  the 
best  efforts  of  even  the  most  skilful  experts.  We  go  to 
the  Musee,  sit  down  and  start  a  game  —  and,  little  by 
little,  we  begin  to  wonder,  and  then  to  grow  skeptical, 
and  then  at  last  to  protest  openly.  Here  is  a  game,  we 
say,  the  development  of  which  is  determined  not  at  all  by 
mechanical  rules,  nor  even  by  the  hazards  of  chance,  but 
strictly  by  the  mental  processes  of  the  players.  And 
yet  here  we  are  asked  to  believe  that  this  dummy  figure, 
which  is  playing  the  game  so  well  that  we  are  being 
speedily  and  ignominiously  defeated,  is  a  machine  and 
nothing  more.  Impossible,  we  say !  It  takes  brains  to 
play  chess.  This  mechanical  figure  is  a  mask.  There 
is  a  person  concealed  somewhere  about  this  mysterious 
Turk,  who  is  thinking  rationally,  and  is  revealing  his 
presence,  in  spite  of  himself,  by  the  movements  of  the 
pawns  and  bishops  upon  the  board ! 

Now  right  here,  in  this  illustration,  do  we  see 
the  first  mark  of  personality  —  namely,  rationality. 
Whenever  we  see  a  living  creature  who  shows  by  his 
actions  that  he  can  carry  on  the  logical  processes  of 
thought,  we  say  at  once  that  he  is  not  a  creature  but 
a  person.  Nay  more,  whenever  we  see  the  evidences  of 
reason  or  intellectuality  at  work,  as  in  the  case  of  the 
mechanical  chess-player,  we  agree  at  once  that  these 


IS  GOD  A  PERSONALITY? 

evidences  prove  the  presence  of  a  personality,  even 
though  we  have  no  other  visible  signs  of  this  presence. 
All  we  need  is  the  sign  that  thought  is  acting  upon 
things,  to  convince  us  that  we  are  face  to  face  with  a' 
person ! 

But  while  rationality  may  thus  unquestionably  bring 
us  face  to  face  with  a  person,  it  just  as  unquestionably 
fails  to  bring  us  face  to  face  with  the  whole  person. 
We  felt  this  strongly  enough  as  we  played  chess  with 
the  mechanical  chess-player.  We  knew  that  we  were 
playing  not  with  a  machine  but  with  a  person,  because 
we  could  see  the  evidences  of  the  person's  thought ;  but 
we  felt  a  sense  of  uncanny  mystery  all  the  same,  for  the 
simple  reason  that  these  evidences  of  thought  revealed 
only  a  part  of  the  personality  with  which  we  were  en- 
gaged, and  this  the  less  important  part.  This  revela- 
tion of  personality,  indeed,  was  so  unsatisfactory  that 
we  felt  more  sense  of  personal  companionship  in  our  dog 
than  in  this  hidden  mind  which  moved  piece  after  piece 
upon  the  chess-board  with  unerring  accuracy  and  pre- 
cision. 

This  brings  us  at  once  to  what  I  regard  as  the  sec- 
ond mark  of  personality  —  namely,  feeling.  A  full- 
rounded  personality  is  characterised  not  only  by  power 
of  thought  but  also  by  capacity  for  emotion.  A  per- 
son not  only  reasons,  but  he  also  loves.  So  important, 
to  our  minds,  is  this  element  of  personality,  that  when 
we  see  such  a  creature  as  the  dog,  who  has  had  his 
instincts  developed,  through  long  association  with  hu- 
manity, into  a  kind  of  rudimentary  affection  and  loy- 


RELIGION  FOR  TO-DAY 

alty,  we  are  tempted  to  endow  him  with  personality 
and  treat  him  exactly  as  we  would  treat  a  human  being. 
And  in  the  same  way,  when  we  see  a  person  who  is  de- 
fective on  the  emotional  side  of  his  nature,  we  feel  that 
his  personality  is  just  to  this  extent  imperfect,  and  the 
man  himself  to  the  same  extent  not  a  man.  It  matters 
not  how  great  may  be  the  intellectual  endowment  or 
how  stupendous  the  power  of  thought,  if  a  man  shows 
no  emotion  in  the  art-gallery  or  the  opera-house  or  out 
in  the  open  fields,  if  he  uncovers  no  sign  of  the  great 
deeps  of  joy  and  sorrow  and  spiritual  aspiration,  if  he 
reveals  no  capacity  for  friendship,  and  if  he  is  never 
moved  to  sacrifice  by  devotion  to  some  great  cause, 
then  we  feel  that  we  have  a  right  to  regard  him,  from 
the  point  of  view  of  personality,  as  just  as  much  a  de- 
fective as  a  man  who  is  feeble-minded. 

A  striking  illustration  of  this  fact  is  shown  in  the 
case  of  Herbert  Spencer.  This  man  was  the  greatest 
thinker  that  the  world  has  seen  since  Aristotle  —  per- 
haps the  greatest  thinker  that  the  world  has  ever  seen. 
But  on  his  emotional  side,  strangely  enough,  he  was 
hopelessly  deficient.  He  had  no  appreciation  of  paint- 
ing or  literature  or  music,  and  never  knew  what  it  was 
to  gaze  upon  a  lovely  vale  or  on  a  lofty  mountain  with 
rapture.  He  had  no  enduring  or  necessary  friendships, 
and  no  liking  even  for  children.  Never,  from  the  be- 
ginning to  the  end  of  his  more  than  eighty  years,  did 
he  look  upon  a  woman  to  love  her.  And  the  one  time 
in  his  life  when  he  abandoned  his  own  work  to  serve 
a  public  cause,  he  describes  in  his  Autobiography  as  "  a 


IS  GOD  A  PERSONALITY?  145 

generous  Mistake,"  and  "  the  most  unfortunate  inci- 
dent "  in  his  career.  Admire  this  man  as  much  as  we 
may,  or  must,  as  a  great  thinker,  we  simply  cannot  love 
him.  And  for  this  all-sufficient  reason  do  we  agree  to 
describe  him  as  personally  defective.  Compare  his 
spirit  with  that  of  Christ,  and  we  may  see  at  once  the 
part  that  emotion  plays  in  the  make-up  of  personality. 
Then  there  is  a  third  mark  of  personality  which  is, 
perhaps  the  most  fundamental  of  the  three.  If  you  will 
recall  to  your  minds,  once  again,  the  case  of  Mary  Rey- 
nolds, you  will  remember  that  this  young  woman  was 
characterised  by  the  alternating  presence  of  two  per- 
sonalities. Now  why,  let  me  ask  you,  do  we  agree  that 
in  her  case  there  were  two  personalities,  and  not  one, 
or  even  three?  The  answer  to  this  question  is  to  be 
found  in  the  fact  that  the  basic  characteristic  of  per- 
sonality is  unity.  All  the  thoughts  and  emotions  of  a 
person,  when  he  is  a  person,  fit  in  together,  like  the  parts 
of  a  machine,  and  constitute  a  perfect  whole.  There 
can  be  no  question  about  your  personality  or  mine,  for 
the  reason  that  everything  we  do  and  say  and  feel  com- 
bine naturally  together  into  a  unity,  and  make  a  single 
impression  on  the  spectator.  In  the  case  of  Mary 
Reynolds,  however,  it  was  different.  Here  was  a  series 
of  thoughts  and  emotions  on  the  one  side  which  did  not 
fit  in  at  all  with  a  companion  series  of  thoughts  and 
emotions  on  the  other.  The  one  series  constituted  a 
unity,  and  the  other  series  also  constituted  a  unity; 
but  the  two  together  constituted  not  a  unity, 
but  a  duality.  Therefore  was  there  no  choice  but  to 


146  RELIGION  FOR  TO-DAY 

say  that  in  Mary  Reynolds's  life  there  were  two  per- 
sonalities, instead  of  one.  And  of  course  these  were 
seen  to  be  no  more  than  two  for  the  simple  reason  that 
every  thought  and  emotion  that  the  girl  ever  had  could 
be  co-ordinated  in  the  unity  of  the  one  personality  or 
the  other.  The  final  and  fundamental  mark,  therefore, 
of  personality  is  unity.  If  a  person  is  truly  and  wholly 
a  person,  there  is  always  behind  all  thought  and  emo- 
tion one  mind,  one  purpose,  one  will,  one  soul,  one 
spirit  —  a  single,  undivided  self ! 

Here,  now,  are  what  I  have  called  the  three  marks  of 
personality  —  in  the  first  place  thought,  in  the  second 
place  feeling,  and  in  the  third  place  unity.  These  are 
the  signs  or  evidences  in  human  life  which  show  me  that 
a  person  is  a  person. 

This  brings  me  to  the  final  question  of  all  — 
namely,  the  question  as  to  whether  these  marks  or 
signs  can  be  seen  in  the  universe  in  such  wise  that 
we  can  believe  that  God  is  a  person  as  you  and  I  are 
persons.  If  the  spirit  of  God  is  personal,  then  God 
will  manifest  himself,  as  we  manifest  ourselves,  in  these 
three  ways  which  I  have  indicated.  The  world  will 
show  itself  to  be  at  once  an  expression  of  a  planning, 
ordering,  directing  spirit  of  Intelligence  —  of  a  spon- 
taneous, watchful,  eager  spirit  of  Love  —  and  of  an  all- 
embracing,  all-harmonious  spirit  of  Unity.  If  we  find 
that  the  marks  of  these  things  are  on  the  universe,  then 
we  have  a  right  to  assert  that  God  is  not  only  spirit 
but  personality;  and  we  have  a  right  to  love  him,  to 


IS  GOD  A  PERSONALITY? 

call  upon  him,  and  pray  to  him,  with  "  quietness  and 
confidence  forever." 

To  take  the  last  of  these  three  marks  of  personality 
first,  I  suppose  that  there  is  nobody  at  this  late  day 
who  will  deny  that  the  universe  is  characterised  by  the 
mark  of  unity.  There  was  a  time,  many  centuries  ago, 
when  the  world  seemed  to  be  such  a  chaos  of  confused 
and  antagonistic  forces,  that  men  found  themselves 
obliged  to  believe  that  there  was  not  one  mind  but  many 
minds,  at  the  heart  of  things.  Hence  the  strange 
and  awful  polytheisms  which  were  so  prevalent  among 
ancient  peoples!  Then,  too,  there  was  a  time  when 
men  thought  that  it  was  impossible  to  reconcile  what 
seems  to  be  the  good  upon  the  one  hand  with  what 
seems  to  be  the  evil  upon  the  other,  and  we  find  as 
a  result  those  dualistic  philosophies  and  theologies  of 
which  Zoroastrianism  is  the  most  familiar  and  impres- 
sive illustration.  But  now,  of  course,  all  such  specula- 
tions as  these  have  been  rendered  forevermore  impossi- 
ble by  the  discoveries  and  investigations  of  modern 
science.  During  the  last  three  centuries  or  so,  we  have 
been  gradually  extending  the  borders  of  human  knowl- 
edge. And  every  step  which  has  been  taken  during  this 
period  of  time  into  the  realm  of  the  unknown,  has  t>een 
straight  in  the  direction  of  the  great  truth  of  Unity, 
until  to-day  men  are  ready  to  assert  that  they  know,  if 
they  know  anything  at  all,  that  the  universe,  as  the 
very  word  itself  clearly  indicates,  is  a  unity.  Long 
since  has  it  been  demonstrated  that  all  the  movements 


148  RELIGION  FOR  TO-DAY 

of  the  world,  in  both  its  organic  and  inorganic  phases, 
are  controlled  by  one  supreme  and  universal  Law,  which 
constitutes  a  harmony  so  perfect  that  it  is  possible  to 
think  of  "  the  music  "  not  only  "  of  the  spheres  "  but  of 
all  created  things.  Long  since  has  it  been  made  known 
that  the  various  forces  which  are  active  in  the  world 
about  us  —  such  as  light,  heat,  electricity,  magnetism, 

—  are  not  different  forces  at  all,  but  only  so  many 
different  expressions  of  one  and  the  same  great  energy, 
and  thus  that  we  have  a  single  Force  exactly  as  we  have 
a  single  Law.     And  now,  in  our  own  time,  has  come  the 
demonstration  of  the  final  truth  that  the  matter,  which 
constitutes  the  stuff  or  substance  of  the  universe,  is 
not  composed  of  some  seventy  or  more  different  atoms, 
as  the  old  chemistry  has  always  taught  us,  but  is  itself 
one,  since  we  know  it  to  be  possible  to  transform  one 
atom  into  another,  exactly  as  we  transform  one  force 
into  another.     Thus  as  a  result  of  such  achievements 
as  these,  do  we  find  ourselves  confronted  to-day  by  one 
Substance,  one  Force,  one  Law.     We  know  ourselves 
to  be  living  in  very  word  and  truth,  in  a  universe! 
This  is  the  one  great  demonstration  of  modern  science 

—  the  one  principle  or  truth  which  finds  universal  ac- 
ceptance by  the  modern  mind.     Those  who  are  farthest 
removed  from  the  influences  of  religion,  and  who  are 
most  bitterly  opposed  to  all  that  we  mean  by  the  idea 
of  God,  are  among  the  very  first  to  assent  to  this  great 
conception  of  the  Unity  of  the  World-Substance,  the 
World-Order,  and  the  World-Life.     This,  says  such  an 
atheist  as  Ernst  Haeckel,  in  his  History  of  Creation 


IS  GOD  A  PERSONALITY?  149 

and  again  in  his  Riddle  of  the  Universe,  is  "  the  basic 
fact  "  of  present-day  knowledge  —  and  then  does  he 
go  on  to  describe  his  materialistic  philosophy  by  the 
immensely  significant  term  of  "  Monism  " !  This  man, 
and  others  like  him,  would  undoubtedly  refuse  to  speak 
with  Tennyson  of 

"One  God,  which  ever  lives  and  loves"; 

but  they  would  not  hesitate  a  moment  to  repeat  his 
phrase 

".  .  .  one  law,  one  element, 

And  one  far-off  divine  event, 
To  which  the  whole  creation  moves." 

What  is  true  here  of  the  mark  of  unity  is  true  also, 
I  believe,  in  equal  measure  of  the  mark  of  Rationality, 
although  I  am  well  aware  that  opinion  is  by  no  means 
so  unanimous  upon  this  point  as  upon  the  other.  To 
my  mind,  however,  it  is  just  as  necessary  to  see  thought 
behind  the  movements  of  the  universe  in  which  we  live, 
as  it  is  to  see  thought  behind  the  movements  of  the  me- 
chanical chessman  with  whom  we  played  our  game. 
The  so-called  Argument  from  Design  was  once  thought 
to  be  a  perfect  demonstration  of  the  existence  and  ac- 
tivity of  a  Divine  Mind;  and  even  now  there  is  much 
in  this  old-fashioned  point  of  view  which  is  valid  and 
impressive.  How  wonderfully  does  James  Martineau 
touch  upon  this  fact  in  his  great  Study  of  Religion! 
"  If  we  give  to  the  word  « Intellect,' "  he  says,  "  its 
wider  scope  and  include  in  it  the  movements  of  thought 


150  RELIGION  FOR  TO-DAY 

which  result  in  great  works  of  art,  who  can  deny  that 
the  creative  genius  of  Nature  ever  transcends  its  in- 
tending skill?  What  sublimer  architecture  than  the 
dome  of  the  midnight  sky !  what  richer  picture-gallery 
than  the  sunset  effects  on  the  same  landscape  through  a 
single  year!  what  more  pathetic  drama  than  the  story 
of  human  life,  forever  enacted  on  the  stage  of  ten  thou- 
sand homes!  Of  these  .  .  .  ,  all  our  Art  is  but  the 
copy ;  and  he  is  the  greatest  master  in  this  field,  who 
most  patiently  studies  the  combinations  of  the  world, 
and  gains  the  deepest  insight  into  this  language  of  ex- 
pression. Of  all  that  we  can  know,  of  all  that  we  can 
admire,  the  original  lies  in  the  universe  around;  they 
are  the  prototypes  of  all  intellectual  relations;  and 
how  can  they  be  Thoughts  in  their  reflections,  unless 
they  be  so  in  their  incidence?  .  .  .  With  what  consist- 
ency can  we  do  homage  to  the  discoverer  of  Law,  and 
see  no  wisdom  in  its  Institution?  and  crown  with  bays 
the  brow  of  a  Dante  or  a  Shakespeare  for  reading  to  us 
the  poem  of  the  world,  yet  have  no  reverence  for  the 
Author  of  its  harmonies?  " 

Thus  has  man  ever  seen  evidence  of  the  Divine  Mind 
in  the  perfect  handiwork  of  the  creation.  But  to-day, 
as  we  know,  this  argument  from  design  has  been,  al- 
most completely  superseded  by  the  new  science  and  phi- 
losophy of  evolution.  The  world  no  longer  appears  to 
us  as  a  design,  but  as  a  growth.  The  simile  of  the 
watch,  as  John  Fiske  puts  it,  has  been  replaced  by  the 
simile  of  the  flower.  For  a  time  it  was  believed  that 
this  new  evolutionary  conception  made  the  hypothesis 


IS  GOD  A  PERSONALITY?  151 

of  a  Divine  Intelligence  behind  the  universal  order  ab- 
surd, and  the  hypothesis  of  a  Divine  Mechanism,  inevi- 
table. But  to-day  we  are  beginning  to  see  that  quite 
the  contrary  is  the  case!  What  stronger  evidence  of 
a  Divine  Mind  do  we  want  than  that  which  is  contained 
in  the  long  process  of  evolution?  See  how  the  inor- 
ganic has  passed  over  into  the  organic,  the  vegetable 
into  the  animal,  and  the  animal  into  the  human.  See 
with  what  persistence  the  process  has  gone  forward 
from  age  to  age,  until  at  last  the  spiritual  reality  at  the 
heart  of  it  all  was  brought  to  light !  What  a  magnifi- 
cent conception  is  here!  What  a  stupendous  achieve- 
ment do  we  behold!  What  a  mark  of  Thought,  and 
Plan,  and  Intellectual  Purpose  is  this!  What  wonder 
that  the  earliest  scientist  and  the  latest  philosopher  in 
the  field  of  evolution,  while  far  apart  on  nearly  every 
other  point,  are  united  in  a  common  conviction  that  the 
universe  is  the  product  of  a  Divine  Mind !  Said  Alfred 
Russel  Wallace,  after  a  lifetime  of  the  most  painstaking 
study  of  natural  phenomena :  "  I  argue  that  these 
phenomena  necessarily  imply  first,  a  Creative  Power, 
which?  so  constituted  matter  as  to  render  these  marvels 
possible ;  a  Directive  Mind,  which  is  demanded  at  every 
step  of  the  process  we  term  growth ;  and  lastly  an  Ulti- 
mate Purpose  in  the  very  existence  of  the  whole  vast 
life-world  in  all  its  long  course  of  evolution."  And 
this  idea  is  echoed  by  Professor  Henri  Bergson  through- 
out his  whole  new  story  of  evolution,  which  he  describes 
as  nothing  more  nor  less  than  the  result  of  the  creative 
impulse  and  creative  struggle  of  a  central  intelligence. 


RELIGION  FOR  TO-DAY 

"  Life,"  he  says,  "  is  of  the  psychological  order.  .  .  . 
Consciousness  is  at  the  origin  of  life  " ! 

Here  now  have  we  found  the  mark  of  Unity  and  the 
mark  of  Thought,  or  Rationality!  Now  what  about 
the  third  mark  —  that  of  Feeling,  or  Emotion,  or 
Love? 

In  answering  this  inquiry,  we  come,  as  we  have  seen, 
to  the  most  important  element  of  personality  —  and 
that  element,  also,  let  me  confess  frankly,  which  it  is 
hardest  to  discover  in  the  universal  order.  For  here 
we  pass  altogether  out  of  the  realm  of  intellectual 
speculation  or  demonstration,  into  the  realm  of  pure 
experience.  We  cannot  stand  aloof  and  prove  by  log- 
ical processes  that  love  lies  at  the  root  of  things.  We 
cannot  seize  upon  the  world  and  demonstrate  by  the 
laboratory  method  that  love  is  there.  We  have  got 
to  plunge  into  the  flood  of  world  events,  as  a  swimmer 
might  plunge  into  a  stream,  and  experience  this  Divine 
Love,  if  it  is  there  at  all,  at  first  hand.  We  have  got 
to  feel  it  for  ourselves,  and  know  that  it  is  there  because 
it  has  entered  into  us  and  we  have  entered  into  it. 
We  have  got  to  follow  in  good  earnest  Bergson's  rrtethod 
of  intuition,  and  know  the  truth  not  by  arguing  about 
it,  but  by  living  it.  And  it  is  just  here  that  most  of 
us  fail,  for  our  intuitions  are  weak,  and  our  experiences 
are  shallow.  We  live  our  little  lives  in  our  obscure  and 
narrow  portions  of  the  world.  We  skim  over  the  sur- 
face of  existence,  never  sinking  to  any  great  depths. 
We  have  our  annoyances  and  our  troubles,  and  now 
and  then  some  heavy  sorrows.  And  in  it  all  we  try  to 


IS  GOD  A  PERSONALITY?  153 

find  some  evidence  of  the  Divine  Love,  of  which  we  have 
heard  so  much,  and  fail  completely.  Or  perhaps  we 
even  go  so  far  as  to  find  evidence  that  there  is  a  prin- 
ciple of  cruelty  or  hate  in  the  world,  instead  of  the 
reported  principle  of  love  —  and  believing  that  our 
experience  is  of  course  infallible  and  final,  we  confi- 
dently declare  that  there  is  no  such  thing  as  love. 

But  why,  pray,  should  we  presume  to  believe  that  our 
own  individual  experience  can  settle  this  great  problem 
of  existence  ?  Why  should  we  trust  our  feelings  in  this 
matter,  in  a  way  and  to  an  extent  in  which  we  never 
think  of  trusting  them  in  any  other  matter?  When  I 
go  into  an  art-gallery  and  find  that  I  do  not  like  a  pic- 
ture which  has  received  the  unqualified  encomiums  of 
unnumbered  generations  of  artists  and  critics,  I  am 
just  humble  enough  to  believe  that  the  men  who  have 
loved  and  admired  the  picture  all  these  years  are  right, 
and  I  am  wrong.  When  I  go  into  a  concert-hall,  and 
hear  with  complete  indifference  a  symphony  which  is 
regarded  by  all  authorities  as  one  of  the  greatest  ever 
written,  I  at  once  assume  that  my  indifference  is  a 
proof  not  that  the  symphony  is  overestimated,  but  that 
I  still  have  something  to  learn  about  music.  When  I 
stand  in  the  vale  above  Tintern  Abbey,  and  look  with 
unmoved  heart  upon  the  scene  which  stirred  the  soul 
of  William  Wordsworth  to  ecstatic  rapture,  I  am  con- 
fident not  that  the  vale  is  not  beautiful,  but  that  I  am 
so  dull  and  stupid  and  inexperienced  that  I  cannot  see 
and  feel  what  is  really  there  all  of  the  time  in  spite  of 
me.  The  blind  man  can  tell  us  nothing  about  the  light 


154  RELIGION  FOR  TO-DAY 

of  the  sun;  the  deaf  man  can  prove  nothing  about 
the  song  of  the  skylark;  the  one  word  of  Jesus  about 
the  lilies  of  the  field  outweighs  centuries  of  silence  from 
the  dull  peasants  of  the  Palestinian  plains.  And  so  it 
is  with  my  failure  to  find  the  Divine  Love  in  and  through 
the  world  of  life.  Over  against  my  failure,  is  the  un- 
questioned success  of  thousands  upon  thousands  of 
men  and  women,  who  have  lived  more  greatly,  and  loved 
more  deeply,  and  suffered  more  terribly,  than  I.  These 
men  and  women  rise  up  and  say  that  the  world  is  full 
of  love.  These  men  and  women  look  sorrow  in  the  face, 
and  still  declare  that  life  is  worth  the  living.  These 
men  and  women  are  beset  by  every  disaster,  and  stricken 
by  every  sorrow,  and  destroyed  by  every  cruelty,  and 
still  they  bear  glad  witness  to  the  fact  that  God  is  good. 
Now  here  to  my  mind  is  experience  that  is  valid, 
here  is  testimony  that  is  unanswerable,  here  is  revelation 
that  is  certain.  Against  all  the  denials  and  doubts  and 
failures  of  all  the  little  souls  who  have  lived  timidly  and 
hoped  faintly,  and  who  from  out  their  weakness  and 
their  fear  have  borne  witness  that  they  have  seen 
no  indication  in  the  world  of  the  Divine  Love,  I  summon 
the  saints  and  seers,  the  prophets  and  martyrs,  the 
poets  and  painters,  of  all  ages  and  all  places,  who  have 
cried  unto  God  out  of  the  depths,  and  have  received 
in  answer  the  assurance  of  his  mercy.  The  Psalmist 
is  right  when  he  says,  "  Like  as  a  Father  pitieth  his 
children,  so  the  Lord  pitieth  them  that  fear  him." 
Jesus  is  incontrovertible  when  he  declares  that  "  God 
is  love."  Our  own  Whittier  has  summed  it  all  up, 


IS  GOD  A  PERSONALITY?  155 

when  he  writes  in  the  meditative  moments  of  his  old 
age: 

"  That  all  the  jarring  notes  of  life 

Seem  blending  in  a  psalm, 

And  all  the  angles  of  its  strife 

Show  rounding  into  calm; 

"  That  more  and  more  a  Providence 

Of  Love  is  understood, 
Making  the  springs  of  time  and  sense 
Sweet  with  eternal  good." 

Here,  now,  in  the  universe  are  Unity,  and  Thought, 
and  Feeling.  Here  do  we  see  one  unified  principle  of 
life;  here  do  we  see  thought  acting  upon  things;  here 
do  we  see  "  a  Providence  of  Love,  making  the  springs 
of  time  and  sense  sweet  with  eternal  good."  Here  in 
the  universe,  in  other  words,  are  the  same  marks  of 
personality  that  we  find  in  and  through  ourselves. 
And  here  therefore  is  the  evidence,  is  it  not,  that  God  is 
a  personality  as  we  are  personalities  ?  God  is  one  as  we 
are  one ;  God  thinks  as  we  think ;  God  loves  as  we  love ; 
God  lives  and  moves  and  has  his  being  just  as  we  live 
and  move  and  have  our  being.  Therefore  do  I  venture 
to  conclude,  by  the  sure  processes  of  logic,  that  if  we 
are  persons,  God  must  be  a  person  too.  I  do  not  mean 
by  this  assertion,  of  course,  that  God  is  what  we  are, 
and  no  more.  He  is  not  only  all  that  we  are  spirit- 
ually, but  infinitely  and  eternally  more  besides.  But  so 
far  at  least  as  our  spirits  reach,  we  may  truly  say, 
that  he  is  what  we  are.  As  we  are  persons,  so  he  is  a 
person.  Which  means  that  when  we  look  upon  a  man, 


156  RELIGION  FOR  TO-DAY 

we  see  a  reflection  of  God ;  and  when  we  think  upon 
God,  we  see  a  projection  of  man. 

And  this  means  what,  to  our  religion?  It  means 
everything  to  our  religion !  It  means  that  our  religious 
consciousness  is  valid;  that  our  instinct  of  prayer 
and  worship  is  sound;  that  our  dependence  upon  the 
divine  wisdom  and  love  is  not  in  vain.  It  means  that 
God  hears,  God  sees,  God  cares.  It  means  that  God 
is  our  Father,  that  we  are  his  children,  and  that  all 
the  life  and  faith  and  love  of  millions  of  human  hearts 
are  justified  at  last. 


THE  MODERN  CONCEPTION  OF  PRAYER 

IT  needs  no  very  great  amount  of  argument  to  point 
out  the  fact  that,  during  the  last  generation  or  so,  a 
great  change  has  gradually  been  coming  over  our  ideas 
and  practices  of  public  and  private  prayer.  In  the 
old  days,  prayer  was  the  simplest,  easiest,  most  natural, 
and  most  commonplace  expression  of  religion.  In  its 
spontaneous  observance  on  all  occasions  of  individual 
and  social  life,  it  seemed  to  be  something  almost  in  the 
nature  of  an  instinct.  Men  prayed  as  naturally  and 
inevitably  as  they  breathed,  and  sometimes,  I  imagine 
it  must  be  confessed,  with  as  little  thought.  But  al- 
ways in  the  great  moments  of  experience,  however  it 
may  have  been  at  ordinary  times,  the  utterance  of 
prayer  was  a  sincere  and  heartfelt  expression  of  the 
soul.  It  was  the  one  avenue  by  which  religion  was  en- 
abled to  enter  freely  and  fully  into  the  daily  lives  of 
individual  men  and  women;  and  the  one  way,  also,  in 
which  religion  again  and  again  seized  upon  the  race  and 
moulded  its  destinies  to  abiding  good  or  ill.  Prayer,  in 
other  words,  has  been  a  real  thing  in  the  past.  The 
great  men  of  the  world  have  been  men  of  prayer,  and 
the  great  movements  in  the  evolution  of  humanity  have 
been  initiated  and  accompanied  by  prayer. 

But  all  this  now  is  wholly  changed.  It  has  long 
since  become  a  truism,  has  it  not,  that  men  do  not  pray 
as  they  did  formerly,  and  that  our  age  is  no  longer, 

157 


158  RELIGION  FOR  TO-DAY 

therefore,  an  age  of  prayer.  Family  prayers,  which 
were  once  a  practically  universal  custom  in  Christian 
households,  are  now  so  exceptional  as  to  be  conspicuous. 
Many  of  us  are  trying,  partly  out  of  reverence  for 
tradition,  and  partly  because  we  trust  our  intuitions 
more  than  our  intellectual  convictions,  to  teach  our 
children  to  pray  in  the  old,  familiar,  simple  way,  but 
how  many  of  us  can  truly  say  that  we  continue  the 
practice  ourselves?  Now  and  then,  to  be  sure,  there 
come  moments  of  bitter  trial  and  sore  distress,  when 
the  old  instinct  revives  and  it  seems  as  though  nothing 
but  prayer  can  appease  the  agony  of  the  mind  or  satisfy 
the  longings  of  the  soul  —  but  how  many  of  us  find  it 
easy,  even  on  such  occasions,  to  take  the  posture  and 
speak  the  words  of  divine  petition?  And  what  is  true 
here  in  our  individual  experience  is  true  also  in  our 
associated  life.  Prayer-meetings  have  disappeared 
from  many  even  of  our  most  orthodox  churches,  and 
where  they  still  survive  they  show  every  evidence  of  de- 
cay. We  still  maintain  unimpaired  the  order  of  prayer 
in  the  services  of  public  worship  in  our  churches,  but 
more  than  one  right-minded  person  has  confessed  to  me 
that  he  finds  it  "  a  bore  " ;  and  the  hour  at  which  most 
people  arrive  in  their  pews  would  seem  to  indicate  that 
they  do  not  regard  the  opening  portions  of  the  service 
as  very  important.  And,  in  the  same  way,  we  still  go 
through  the  performance  of  invoking  the  blessing  of 
God  upon  our  public  gatherings  of  all  descriptions. 
Nobody  would  think  of  such  a  thing,  for  example,  as 
opening  a  political  convention  or  a  legislative  session 


THE  MODERN  CONCEPTION  OF  PRAYER   159 

without  the  regular  prayer  of  the  duly  appointed  chap- 
lain. But  is  it  not  significant  of  the  temper  of  our  age 
that  the  one  clergyman  at  the  Baltimore  convention  of 
1912  who  had  the  "  good  sense,"  as  we  were  told,  to 
make  his  prayer  short,  was  rewarded  with  a  burst  of 
applause  so  hearty  and  spontaneous  that  it  was  made  a 
subject  of  newspaper  comment  throughout  the  land ;  and 
that  when  it  was  moved  some  years  ago,  in  the  United 
States  Senate,  that  the  prayers  of  the  retiring  chaplain 
be  gathered  and  printed  in  a  volume  for  permanent 
record,  the  motion  was  defeated  on  the  ground  that  so 
few  of  the  honourable  senators  had  ever  been  present 
to  hear  the  prayers,  it  was  not  worth  while  to  preserve 
them  ? 

The  fact  of  the  matter  is  —  try  to  disguise  it  as  we 
may  with  our  pretentious  hypocrisies  and  our  easy 
shams !  —  we  are  no  longer  taking  the  practice  of 
prayer  very  seriously.  We  are  finding  it  more  and 
more  difficult  to  reconcile  the  idea  of  prayer  with  the 
new  scientific  and  philosophic  knowledge  of  our  time. 
Deep  down  in  our  hearts  we  are  cherishing  certain  very 
definite  doubts  of  the  efficacy  of  prayer,  and  thus,  as  a 
natural  consequence,  gradually  allowing  its  observance, 
both  public  and  private,  to  fall  into  neglect.  Whether 
we  like  it  or  not,  whether  it  is  a  healthy  sign  or  not,  it 
would  still  seem  to  be  true  that  the  age  of  prayer  is 
closed  forever,  and  the  men  of  prayer  the  heroes  of  an 
elder  day. 

In  order  to  understand  this  remarkable  change  in 
the  religious  experience  and  habit  of  the  race,  it  is  nee- 


160  RELIGION  FOR  TO-DAY 

essary  to  consider  for  a  few  moments  some  of  the  objec- 
tions to  prayer  which  have  arisen  in  our  time,  and 
which  have  done  more  than  anything  else  to  bring 
about  this  transformation  of  which  I  have  been  speak- 
ing. 

In  the  first  place,  we  find  it  difficult  to-day  to  believe 
that  the  affairs  of  men  here  upon  the  earth  are  of  such 
large  importance  in  the  eyes  of  God  that  he  has  nothing 
more  important  to  do  than  to  listen  to  our  complaints 
and  give  answer  to  our  petitions.  It  was  easy  to 
believe  that  God  was  heeding  our  prayers  when  the 
earth  was  regarded  as  the  centre  of  the  universe,  and 
the  salvation  of  men's  souls  the  central  problem  of 
cosmic  history.  But  it  is  not  easy  to  cherish  this 
belief  when  we  stand  confronted  by  the  vast  reaches 
of  the  universe  which  have  been  unfolded  before  our 
gaze  by  the  researches  of  modern  science.  Here  are 
the  heavenly  spaces  all  about  us,  stretching  out  so 
many  millions  of  miles  in  every  direction  that  the  mind 
of  man  is  unable  to  comprehend  their  magnitude,  and 
our  little  planet  one  of  the  smallest  and  least  important 
of  the  unnumbered  stars  by  which  they  are  everywhere 
illumined.  Consider  the  great  ocean  which  rolls  be- 
tween this  shore  and  the  continent  of  Europe ;  imagine 
in  the  midst  of  that  ocean  a  little  piece  of  seaweed 
floating  upon  its  waves ;  and  you  will  have  a  very  ex- 
aggerated idea  of  the  importance  of  this  earth  from 
the  standpoint  of  the  surrounding  universe.  Then  im- 
agine that  this  seaweed  is  peopled  by  myriads  of  infini- 
tesimal creatures;  ask  yourselves  of  how  much  impor- 


THE  MODERN  CONCEPTION  OF  PRAYER    161 

tance  these  little  animals  are  from  the  standpoint  of 
the  world-problems  with  which  you  and  I  are  concerned ; 
and  you  will  have  some  conception,  perhaps,  of  how 
large  the  affairs  of  man  must  appear  in  the  cosmic 
vision  of  God.  The  extent  of  the  universe  in  space 
and  time,  which  has  been  discovered  and  explored  by 
the  great  sciences  of  our  day,  is  so  enormous  that  man 
has  shrunken  to  a  position  of  utter  insignificance, 
and,  in  the  face  of  this  result,  it  is  difficult  indeed  to 
believe  that  God  can  be  very  much  concerned  with  the 
petty  desires  and  aspirations  of  our  individual  lives. 
In  the  second  place,  the  old  conception  of  prayer 
has  been  discredited  by  what  we  know  as  "  the  uni- 
versality of  natural  law."  We  know  to-day,  if  we 
know  anything  at  all,  that  this  vast  material  universe 
is  controlled  throughout  by  unchanging  and  unchange- 
able laws.  There  is  no  remotest  corner  of  all  the  im- 
measurable infinities  of  space,  and  no  briefest  fraction 
of  a  second  in  all  the  unending  eternities  of  time,  which 
are  subject  to  disorder,  or  even  momentary  interfer- 
ence from  without,  but  all  things,  in  the  most  distant 
star  in  the  heavens  as  on  this  whirling  earth,  and  in 
the  earliest  moment  of  cosmic  history  as  at  this  latest 
moment  of  recorded  time,  are  subject  to  the  unvarying 
and  perfect  uniformity  of  law.  When  this  great  fact 
was  first  revealed  to  the  world,  it  was  believed  for  a 
time  that  it  meant  the  elimination  of  God  from  the 
universe,  and  the  establishment  of  the  philosophy  of 
atheism.  Now,  however,  we  have  come  to  see  that 
there  is  nothing  essentially  irreconcilable  between  the 


162  RELIGION  FOR  TO-DAY 

thought  of  God  and  the  thought  of  a  universe  which 
is  always  moving  in  accordance  with  unvarying  law. 
On  the  contrary,  this  natural  law,  of  which  we  speak, 
is  not  to  be  regarded  as  alien  to  God  at  all,  but  only 
as  something  which  marks  the  uniform  channels  of 
activity  into  which  God  is  directing  the  impulses  of 
his  creative  energy.  There  are  various  ways  of  ex- 
plaining this  relationship  between  the  life  of  God  upon 
the  one  hand  and  the  reign  of  law  upon  the  other. 
John  Fiske  tells  us  that  a  natural  law  is  nothing  more 
nor  less  than  the  statement  of  the  particular  way  in 
which  God  always  chooses  to  act.  When  we  discover 
the  operation  of  some  natural  law,  as  Kepler  discov- 
ered the  law  of  planetary  motion,  or  Newton  the  law 
of  gravitation,  or  Spencer  the  law  of  evolution,  we 
are  simply  discovering  the  principle  to  which  God  has 
decided  to  conform  his  life;  and  when  we  formulate 
these  laws  into  a  system  and  declare  that  this  system 
marks  the  uniform  procedure  of  natural  forces,  we  are 
simply  telling  the  way  in  which  God  "  lives  and  moves 
and  has  his  being."  God  can  only  act  in  one  way,  says 
Fiske,  because  he  is  not  whimsical  or  capricious  but 
perfectly  wise,  and  knows  therefore  just  what  he  wants 
to  do  and  just  how  he  can  do  it.  To  ask  him  to  re- 
verse his  constant  method  of  action  in  any  particular 
case  is  to  ask  him  to  reverse  himself,  and  condemn  him- 
self. 

James  Martineau  has  interpreted  this  fact  in  a  some- 
what different  way.  "  The  universality  of  law,"  he 
says,  in  one  of  the  profoundcst  passages  he  ever  wrote, 


THE  MODERN  CONCEPTION  OF  PRAYER   163 

"  is  God's  eternal  act  of  self -limitation,  or  abstinence 
from  the  movements  of  free  affection,  for  the  sake  of  a 
constancy  that  shall  never  falter  or  deceive."  M.  Berg- 
son  comes  to  identically  the  same  conclusion,  but  sub- 
stitutes the  element  of  compulsion  for  that  of  free 
choice.  God,  he  says,  is  confronted,  in  his  creative 
work,  by  certain  definite  conditions  of  reality,  and  he 
finds  it  necessary  to  conform  to  these  conditions.  This 
means  that  natural  laws  are  nothing  but  the  revelation 
of  the  adaptations  which  the  spirit  of  life  finds  it  neces- 
sary to  make  in  its  struggle  with  dead  matter.  We 
may  explain  this  phenomenon,  therefore,  in  one  way, 
or  we  may  explain  it  in  another,  but  the  cosmic  fact 
remains  always  the  same  —  that  the  laws  of  this  uni- 
verse are  changeless,  for  the  reason  that  God,  from 
choice  as  most  of  us  would  put  it,  or  from  compulsion 
as  I  imagine  Bergson  would  put  it,  is  always  moving 
along  certain  precise  lines  and  working  in  a  certain 
definite  way.  "  God  is  the  same  yesterday,  to-day, 
and  forever !  .  .  .  With  him  is  no  variableness,  neither 
shadow  of  turning !  " 

Now  it  is  evident,  is  it  not,  that  this  principle  of 
the  uniformity  of  divine  activity,  founded  upon  the 
scientific  demonstration  of  the  universality  of  natural 
law,  is  fatal  to  the  old  idea  of  prayer.  In  what  way 
can  a  spoken  prayer,  for  example,  so  change  the  at- 
mospheric conditions  that  a  period  of  drought  can  be 
transformed  into  a  period  of  rain?  How  can  a  verbal 
petition  even  to  God  so  alter  the  physical  conditions 
of  seed  and  soil  and  nourishment  as  to  change  the  bar- 


164  RELIGION  FOR  TO-DAY 

renness  of  a  famine-stricken  country  into  the  full  har- 
vest of  abundant  crops  ?  How  is  our  prayer  to  change 
the  laws  of  wind  and  wave  in  such  fashion  that  the 
safety  of  a  friend  upon  the  seas  can  be  assured? 
How  can  the  prayers  even  of  an  entire  nation  achieve 
a  victory  upon  the  field  of  battle,  or  save  a  much-loved 
President  from  the  consequences  of  an  assassin's  bul- 
let? These  are  events  which  follow  upon  certain  well- 
understood  causes,  and  the  sequence  between  cause  and 
effect  here,  as  everywhere  else  in  the  world  of  nature 
and  of  human  affairs,  is  invariable.  As  well  expect, 
by  means  of  prayer,  to  swing  a  planet  out  of  its  ap- 
pointed orbit,  to  bid  the  "  mountains  to  be  cast  into 
the  midst  of  the  sea,"  or  to  destroy  this  earth  and 
make  it  vanish  into  space,  as  by  prayer  to  bring  one 
drop  of  rain  or  one  ray  of  sunshine  from  the  skies,  to 
stay  the  action  of  a  raging  storm,  or  to  win  a  victory 
upon  the  field  of  battle. 

Moving  now  from  the  field  of  science  to  the  field  of 
religion  proper,  we  encounter  a  third  difficulty  in  the 
way  of  the  old  idea  of  prayer.  I  refer  to  the  fact 
that  a  prayer,  which  is  devoted  to  instructing  God  as 
to  our  troubles  and  beseeching  him  for  relief,  would 
seem  to  imply  a  lack  of  faith  in  his  omniscience  on  the 
one  hand,  and  his  beneficence  upon  the  other.  If  we 
really  trust  in  the  wisdom  and  goodness  of  God,  why, 
let  me  ask  you,  should  we  pray  at  all?  Why  should 
we  not  surrender  ourselves  absolutely  to  God's  keep- 
ing, and  rest  there  without  petition  of  our  own?  God 
is  wise,  we  say;  then  why  should  we  ask  him  to  send 


THE  MODERN  CONCEPTION  OF  PRAYER    165 

rain  to  end  the  drought,  for  surely  he  must  know  of 
its  occurrence,  and  be  permitting  its  continuance  for 
reasons  which  we  know  not  of,  but  which  are  satisfac- 
tory to  him?  God  is  merciful;  then  why  should  we 
beseech  him  to  guard  us  from  some  impending  calam- 
ity, for  he  surely  would  not  wantonly  compass  our 
destruction?  God,  we  believe,  "doth  not  afflict  will- 
ingly, nor  grieve  the  children  of  men  " ;  then  why  should 
we  pray  him  to  save  our  loved  ones  from  death  upon 
the  seas,  for  "  surely  he  knoweth  our  frame,  he  remem- 
bereth  that  we  are  dust  "  ?  It  is  perfectly  evident,  is 
it  not,  that  the  old  idea  of  prayer  is  inconsistent  with 
our  professed  trust  in  the  power  and  the  goodness  of 
God.  Petitions  that  he  will  do  this  or  will  not  do  that, 
show  only  that  our  faith  in  him  is  not  as  absolute  as 
we  would  fain  believe. 

As  a  fourth  objection  to  prayer,  I  would  refer  to  the 
very  practical  difficulty  that  God  could  not  answer 
prayer,  even  if  he  desired  to  do  so,  owing  to  the  con- 
fusion of  human  wishes.  Here  are  millions  of  men 
upon  this  planet,  of  different  races  and  nationalities, 
of  various  habits  and  tastes  and  inclinations,  with 
diversified  interests  and  ambitions,  oftentimes  diamet- 
rically opposed  in  their  hopes  and  aspirations,  and" 
yet  all  of  them  praying  that  God  will  do  as  they  desire. 
The  farmer  wants  rain  for  his  crops,  and  the  picnic 
party  wants  fair  skies  and  warm  sunshine.  The 
schooner  beating  up  the  coast  wants  a  wind  from  the 
southwest,  and  the  schooner  sailing  down  the  coast 
a  wind  from  the  northeast.  The  Frenchman  wants  vie- 


166  RELIGION  FOR  TO-DAY 

tory  to  rest  upon  the  tricolour,  and  the  German  upon 
the  Prussian  eagle.  Which  prayer  shall  God  answer; 
how  shall  he  choose;  to  whom  shall  he  give  his  favour? 
Was  not  Lincoln  right  when  he  pointed  out  in  his  Sec- 
ond Inaugural  Address,  "  Both  North  and  South  pray 
to  the  same  God,  and  each  invokes  his  aid  against  the 
other.  .  .  .  The  prayers  of  both  could  not  be  an- 
(swered"? 

Lastly,  passing  from  the  realm  of  theory  to  the  realm 
of  fact,  there  is  that  difficulty  which  has  assailed  so 
many  devout  and  trusting  hearts  —  namely,  that  if 
God  heeds  the  prayers  we  speak,  why  does  he  not  an- 
swer them  more  often?  Many  a  believer  who  knows 
nothing  of  the  speculative  objections  which  we  have 
been  considering,  has  been  led  unwillingly  from 
faith  to  doubt  by  the  hard,  cold  fact  that  few 
prayers  are  ever  really  answered.  We  hear,  every 
now  and  then,  of  wonderful  things  that  have  been 
accomplished  by  prayer;  but  very  seldom  do  we 
hear  of  the  things  which  prayer  has  failed  to  accom- 
plish. And  yet  I  venture  to  assert  that  for  every  one 
prayer  which  has  seemed  to  be  answered,  there  have 
been  thousands  and  tens  of  thousands  of  prayers  which 
have  manifestly  not  been  answered.  Think  of  how  this 
entire  nation  united  in  one  great  prayer  that  the  life 
of  President  McKinley  might  be  spared,  and  then  recall 
how  that  prayer  was  left  unanswered !  Think  of  the 
agonising  prayers  which  must  have  mounted  heaven- 
ward from  the  deck  of  the  Titanic  as  she  slowly  sank 
her  great  hulk  beneath  the  icy  waters  of  the  Atlantic 


THE  MODERN  CONCEPTION  OF  PRAYER    167 

—  and  yet  no  answer !  Think  of  the  prayers  that  were 
spoken  by  a  million  sufferers  in  the  flood-stricken 
regions  of  Indiana  and  Ohio  some  years  ago  —  and  yet 
nothing  done  to  stay  the  mad  progress  of  the  waters! 
If  God  can  answer  prayer,  then  why,  in  the  name  of  all 
that  is  merciful,  did  he  turn  a  deaf  ear  to  such  pitiful 
entreaties  as  these?  We  do  not  need  to  theorise  about 
this  problem.  In  spite  of  occasional  coincidences  and 
marvels,  we  all  of  us  know,  as  a  plain  matter  of  fact, 
that  prayers  are  not  answered;  and  this,  I  doubt  not, 
has  done  more  than  everything  else  put  together  to 
discredit  the  idea,  and  end  the  practice,  of  public  and 
private  prayer. 

These  are  the  main  objections  which  are  being  of- 
fered to-day  to  the  idea  of  prayer,  and  which  are  stand- 
ing in  the  way  of  the  continued  practice  of  prayer. 
And  what  is  to  be  said  as  to  the  validity  of  these  objec- 
tions ? 

In  the  first  place,  it  must  have  impressed  us  all  that 
every  one  of  these  objections  to  prayer  is  based  upon  a 
very  definite  and  particular  interpretation  of  the  mean- 
ing of  prayer.  Behind  all  of  these  difficulties  which  I 
have  named  are  the  ideas  that  God,  in  his  relation  to 
the  universe,  is  a  great  ruler  or  king,  who,  like  an 
earthly  sovereign,  can  do  anything  that  he  pleases 
within  the  borders  of  his  dominions  —  that  it  is  the 
business  of  men,  if  they  want  anything  to  come  to  pass 
in  their  own  individual  lives  or  in  the  world  at  large,  to 
tell  God  what  they  want  and  try  to  persuade  him  to 
grant  it  —  and  that  prayer  is  only  the  practical  me- 


168  RELIGION  FOR  TO-DAY 

dium  for  conveying  this  information  and  persuasion  to 
the  ears  of  God.  Prayer,  in  other  words,  from  the 
point  of  view  of  these  objections  alleged  against  it,  is 
nothing  more  nor  less  than  a  petition  addressed  to  God 
for  the  bestowal  of  earthly  favours.  It  is  a  request 
upon  the  part  of  man  that  God  relieve  him  of  some 
evil,  or  reward  him  with  some  blessing  —  that  God 
change  the  order  of  physical  phenomena  or  interfere 
with  the  progress  of  human  events,  at  some  particular 
time,  or  in  some  particular  place,  for  his  own  personal 
benefit.  Nor  is  this  an  unfair  or  inaccurate  interpre- 
tation, for  certainly  we  must  all  of  us  admit  that  this 
is  what  the  ordinary  man  in  all  ages  has  understood  by 
prayer,  and  that  this  is  the  kind  of  prayer  which  has 
generally  been  offered  in  the  past,  and  is  still  being 
offered  to-day. 

Man  has  always  had  an  unalterable  conviction  that, 
if  he  wanted  anything  especial  in  this  world,  he  would 
surely  get  it  if  he  only  prayed  long  enough  and  hard 
enough  to  God ;  and  therefore  have  prayers,  in  the  past, 
been  one  long  succession  of  petitions  for  certain  changes 
for  the  better  in  man's  physical  condition,  in  the  mate- 
rial and  social  environment  in  which  he  has  been  living, 
and  in  the  issue  of  the  human  events  in  which  he  has 
been  involved.  Thus  men,  as  we  have  seen,  have  prayed 
for  rain  in  a  period  of  prolonged  drought,  for  food  in 
a  time  of  famine,  for  safety  in  the  hour  of  urgent  dan- 
ger. They  have  prayed  that  the  sick  might  be  made 
well,  that  those  upon  the  sea,  or  in  perilous  places  of 
storm  and  flood,  might  be  protected  from  disaster,  that 


THE  MODERN  CONCEPTION  OF  PRAYER   169 

victory  might  come  upon  the  field  of  battle  in  time  of 
war.  Nor  have  prayers  of  this  kind  wholly  ceased, 
even  in  this  age  of  spiritual  indifference.  Only  a  few 
years  ago,  at  a  time  of  serious  drought  in  Kansas,  the 
governor  issued  a  proclamation,  asking  the  ministers 
of  the  state  to  unite  on  a  certain  Sunday  in  prayer 
to  God  for  rain.  I  have  myself  heard  a  minister 
pray  during  a  great  famine  in  India,  that  God  would 
bring  food  to  the  hordes  of  that  starving  country, 
even  as  he  sent  the  ravens  to  feed  Elijah  in  the  desert. 
At  this  very  moment,  in  all  the  Christian  churches 
of  England,  France,  Russia  and  Italy,  are  prayers 
being  spoken  for  the  success  of  the  allied  armies  in 
their  struggle  against  the  legions  of  the  Central  Em- 
pires. 

That  God  will  interfere  in  some  way  with  the  course 
of  natural  or  human  events  for  the  benefit  of  man,  has 
been  the  burden  of  all  the  prayers  of  all  the  ages  past. 
Thus  it  was  that  when  Prof.  John  Tyndall,  in  1872, 
wished  to  assail  the  validity  of  prayer,  and  show  his 
contempt  for  its  observance,  he  offered  his  famous 
"  test  " —  that  two  exactly  similar  wards  of  a  hospital 
be  filled  respectively  with  an  equal  number  of  patients, 
afflicted  with  the  same  diseases,  and,  so  far  as  possible, 
in  the  same  general  condition  of  depression  or  convales- 
cence; that  the  one  ward  be  placed  in  the  hands  of 
clergymen,  and  the  patients  treated  by  nothing  but  the 
prayers  of  these  men  for  their  recovery,  and  the  other 
ward  removed  from  all  religious  influences,  and  the 
patients  treated  by  the  best  skill  and  knowledge  of 


170  RELIGION  FOR  TO-DAY 

trained  physicians;  and  that  a  careful  record  be  kept, 
for  purposes  of  comparison,  of  the  deaths  and  recov- 
eries in  each  ward.  This  is  what  prayer  meant  to 
Prof.  Tyndall,  and  this  was  the  way,  to  his  mind,  to 
prove  that  it  was  nothing  but  a  superstition. 

Now  it  is  against  this  particular  conception  of 
prayer  as  a  petition  addressed  to  God  for  interference 
with  the  orderly  processes  of  natural  phenomena,  that 
these  objections,  which  I  have  been  discussing,  are  all 
of  them  directed.  And  I  believe  that  we  must  admit, 
in  all  frankness,  that,  from  this  point  of  view  at  least, 
these  objections  are  every  one  of  them  unanswerable. 
It  is  the  very  general  recognition  of  this  fact,  which 
accounts  for  the  sweeping  changes  which  have  come  in 
our  habit  of  prayer  during  the  last  two  generations. 
We  are  convinced  to-day  that  prayer,  such  as  has  been 
practised  for  unnumbered  centuries  in  the  past,  is  lit- 
erally of  no  avail.  Tyndall  was  right  when  he  chal- 
lenged the  church  with  his  "  prayer-test,"  and  the 
church  showed  that  it  did  not  believe  its  own  profes- 
sions when  it  declined  to  pick  up  the  gauntlet.  We  see 
clearly  enough  to-day,  if  we  never  saw  it  before,  that 
there  is  only  one  kind  of  prayer  that  can  effect  any- 
thing in  the  physical  world,  and  that  is  the  prayer  not 
of  words  but  of  deeds.  The  only  pra}rer  that  can  save 
a  barren  land  from  famine  is  the  digging  of  irrigation 
canals.  The  only  prayer  that  can  save  a  storm-tossed 
ship  upon  the  seas  is  the  vigilance  of  the  captain  upon 
the  bridge  and  the  discipline  of  the  crew  upon  the 
decks.  The  only  prayer  that  can  persuade  God  to 


THE  MODERN  CONCEPTION  OF  PRAYER    171 

bring  victory  upon  the  field  of  battle  is  the  genius  of 
the  general  in  command  and  the  perfect  valour  of  the 
soldier  in  the  ranks.  Cromwell  knew  what  he  was  doing 
when  he  commanded  his  soldiers  not  only  to  pray  but 
to  keep  their  powder  dry.  Bayard  Taylor  was  right 
when  he  said  that  "  labour  is  the  truest  prayer." 
Emerson  was  only  anticipating  our  most  extreme  mod- 
ern thought  upon  this  question,  when  he  said,  in  his 
essay  upon  "  Self-Reliance,"  "  As  soon  as  a  man  is  at 
one  with  God  he  will  not  beg.  He  will  then  see  prayer 
in  action.  The  prayer  of  the  farmer  kneeling  in  his 
field  to  weed  it,  the  prayer  of  the  rower  kneeling  with 
the  stroke  of  the  oar,  are  true  prayers  heard  through- 
out nature."  This  whole  transformation  which  has  re- 
cently come  over  our  conception  of  prayer,  under  the 
influence  of  such  considerations  as  I  have  just  been 
discussing,  is  beautifully  illustrated  by  the  familiar 
story  of  the  little  girl  and  boy  who  were  in  great  fear 
of  being  late  to  school.  "  Oh,  let's  stop,"  said  the  girl, 
as  they  ran  along,  "  and  pray  God  to  get  us  to  school 
in  time."  "  No,"  said  the  boy,  a  true  son  of  his  gen- 
eration, "  let's  run  as  fast  as  we  can,  and  pray  while 
we're  running." 

From  all  this  the  conclusion  would  seem  to  be  inevi- 
table, would  it  not,  that  the  practice  of  prayer  is  for- 
evermore  impossible  for  all  intelligent  and  right-minded 
persons.  It  would  seem  that  the  change  which  has 
come  over  our  individual  and  social  practices  in  regard 
to  prayer,  during  the  last  few  years,  is  wholly  benefi- 
cent, and  that  it  is  earnestly  to  be  desired  that  we  shall 


172  RELIGION  FOR  TO-DAY 

soon  have  the  courage  to  eliminate  the  custom  of  prayer 
from  our  public  services  of  worship  as  completely  as 
we  have  already  eliminated  it  from  our  private  houses. 
This  is  certainly  the  case  if  prayer  is  to  be  understood 
as  meaning  only  what  Prof.  Tyndall  understood  it  to 
mean  when  he  proposed  his  famous  "  prayer-test "  to 
the  English  people. 

But  let  me  say  right  here,  without  any  further  post- 
ponement of  the  issue  toward  which  I  have  been  moving 
all  this  while,  that  I  for  one  have  very  serious  doubts 
if  this  idea  of  prayer  as  a  petition  to  God  to  do  some- 
thing for  man  in  the  outward  material  world  is  all  that 
is  contained  in  this  great  phenomenon  of  religious  ex- 
perience —  or,  indeed,  is  properly  contained  therein  at 
all !  This  is  the  idea,  to  be  sure,  which  has  been  domi- 
nant in  the  minds  of  men  ever  since  the  first  savage 
lifted  his  hands  in  prayer  to  God  for  vengeance  upon 
his  enemies  or  protection  from  the  tempest.  This  is 
the  idea  which  has  found  expression  in  the  public  and 
private  prayers  of  unnumbered  generations  of  men,  as 
any  reading  of  human  history  will  clearly  show.  Prof. 
Tyndall  was  undoubtedly  reflecting  the  idea  of  his  own 
and  every  other  age,  when  he  saw  in  this  religious  prac- 
tice nothing  but  a  method  for  the  healing  of  disease. 
But  we  find  ourselves  shaken  just  a  bit  in  this  connec- 
tion, it  seems  to  me,  when  we  turn  from  the  supersti- 
tions of  the  multitudes  and  the  traditions  of  the  church, 
and  mount  into  the  serene  and  lofty  atmosphere  of  the 
great  prophetic  souls  of  the  eras  gone. 

I  examine  in  my  library  some  of  "  the  prayers  of  the 


THE  MODERN  CONCEPTION  OF  PRAYER   173 

ages,"  as  we  might  call  them  —  the  prayers  which  are 
recorded  from  the  lips  of  men  like  Buddha  and  Socra- 
tes and  Jesus,  Augustine  and  St.  Bernard  and  St. 
Francis  of  Assisi,  John  Fox  and  John  Wesley,  Bishop 
Butler,  Cardinal  Newman,  and  Theodore  Parker  — 
men  of  all  ages,  all  variations  of  belief,  and  all  diver- 
sities of  religious  custom.  Many  of  these  prayers  are 
expressed  in  the  crude  and  superstitious  language  of 
the  days  in  which  they  were  spoken;  and  all  of  them 
fall  again  and  again  into  the  ignoble  attitude  of  peti- 
tion which  we  have  been  discrediting.  And  yet  the 
impressive  fact  remains  that  the  predominating  spirit 
of  these  utterances  is  something  wholly  different  from 
anything  that  we  have  thus  far  considered.  If  we 
mean  by  prayer  nothing  more  than  a  request  to  God  for 
the  stilling  of  a  storm  or  the  winning  of  a  battle,  then 
the  utterances  of  these  great  souls  are  not  prayers. 
But  if,  on  the  other  hand,  these  utterances  must  be 
regarded  as  prayers  in  the  real  sense  of  the  word,  then 
the  idea  of  prayer  is  something  infinitely  more  sublime, 
more  tender,  and  more  august  than  anything  we  have 
yet  described.  And  I  believe  that  this  latter  is  the  true  j 
horn  of  the  dilemma !  I  believe  that  we  have  been  deal- 
ing with  a  conception  of  prayer,  which,  however  fa- 
miliar or  universal,  is  altogether  inadequate.  I  believe 
that  the  objections  which  we  have  very  properly  levelled 
against  this  conception  have  been  objections  not  to 
prayer  in  itself,  but  to  a  false  idea  of  prayer  which  has 
unfortunately  found  lodgment  within  the  human  mind. 
I  believe  that  prayer,  when  rightly  understood  and 


174  RELIGION  FOR  TO-DAY 

practised,  is  the  noblest  act  of  which  a  human  being  is 
capable,  and  is  something  absolutely  essential  to  the 
purity  and  integrity  of  the  soul.  And  I  believe  that 
it  is  the  task  of  our  age,  not  to  get  away  from  the 
idea  and  practice  of  prayer  altogether,  because  a  false 
conception  of  its  observance  has  been  impressed  upon 
our  attention,  but  to  get  back  to  that  true  spirit  of 
prayer,  which  is  reflected  in  the  utterances  of  all  the 
great  souls  of  the  centuries  gone  by,  and  then  yield 
ourselves  to  this  spirit  "  in  spirit  and  in  truth  " ! 

And  what  is  this  true  spirit  of  prayer,  of  which  I 
am  speaking?  We  may  perhaps  get  at  what  we  are 
after  most  readily  by  a  process  of  analogy. 

Here,  we  will  say,  is  a  man  who  has  a  passion  for 
beauty,  and  desires  to  give  outward  expression  to  his 
passion  by  becoming  a  painter.  What,  now,  does  he 
do?  He  becomes  a  student  of  art;  for  the  prosecution 
of  his  studies,  he  betakes  himself  to  the  great  gal- 
leries of  the  world,  where  are  gathered  those  paintings 
which  have  most  nearly  approximated  to  the  artistic 
ideal ;  and  there  he  gives  himself  to  the  meditation  and 
study  of  their  greatness.  For  days  and  weeks  together 
he  yields  himself  to  the  creations  of  Raphael,  Michael- 
Angelo,  Da  Vinci,  Titian,  his  mind  absorbing  the  won- 
ders of  their  beauty,  his  soul  suffused  with  the  marvels 
of  their  perfection.  And  gradually  his  soul  begins  to 
grow;  he  begins  to  climb  up,  step  by  step,  toward  the 
heights  on  which  these  great  artists  lived,  until  at  last 
he  begins  to  see  the  visions  which  they  saw,  to  compre- 
hend the  ideals  of  beauty  which  they  expressed,  and 


THE  MODERN  CONCEPTION  OF  PRAYER    175 

finally  to  be  able  to  set  forth,  more  or  less  imperfectly, 
these  visions  and  ideals  for  himself.  By  the  constant 
contemplation,  that  is,  of  the  great  paintings  of  the 
world  the  student  of  art  finds  himself  gaining  such  in- 
sight and  consecration,  that  in  time  he  is  himself 
equipped  for  the  creation  of  similar  works  of  beauty. 
Witness  how,  as  a  young  man,  Burne-Jones  worshipped 
at  the  shrine  of  Rossetti,  studied  the  master's  canvases 
by  day  and  dreamed  of  them  by  night,  until  his  soul 
had  itself  mounted  to  the  heights  and  gained  the  power 
and  the  vision  that  it  sought. 

Again,  here  is  a  young  man  whose  soul  yearns  to 
express  itself  in  music.  He  also  becomes  a  student 
and  makes  it  his  business  to  seek  out  the  great  musi- 
cians of  the  past  and  of  the  present,  to  study  their 
symphonies  and  oratorios  and  operas,  to  attend  con- 
certs where  his  soul  may  be  lifted  up  by  the  power  of 
great  orchestras  and  choruses,  and  thus  at  last,  like 
Elijah  of  old,  to  be  transported,  as  by  a  chariot  of 
fire,  into  the  heaven  of  his  desires.  Little  by  little, 
through  such  a  process  as  this,  he  begins  to  understand 
and  to  feel,  and,  best  of  all,  to  find  power  for  himself 
to  pour  forth  his  soul  in  the  divine  melody  of  song. 
The  spirit  of  music,  in  other  words,  through  much 
meditation  and  communion,  is  conjured  at  last  to 
enter  into  his  life,  as  the  spirit  of  art  was  made  to 
enter  into  the  life  of  the  painter,  and  there  give  inspira- 
tion to  his  labours.  Witness,  for  example,  how  Richard 
Wagner  worshipped  at  the  shrine  of  Beethoven,  through 
many  a  year  of  eager  longing  and  patient  hope,  until 


176  RELIGION  FOR  TO-DAY 

at  last  the  master's  soul  became  as  his  own,  and  he 
himself  the  master  of  a  later  day. 

Now  here,  in  exactly  the  same  way,  are  men  and 
women  who  are  striving,  some  eagerly  and  some  indif- 
ferently, to  understand  the  secret  of  spiritual  life,  by 
which  I  mean  the  life  of  "love,  joy,  peace,  long- 
suffering,  gentleness,  meekness,  faith,  temperance." 
Students  of  life  as  the  others  are  students  of  art  and 
of  music,  they  look  abroad  over  the  world  in  which 
they  are  living,  and  they  find  that  every  minutest  par- 
ticle of  this  world  is  tingling  with  that  divine  spirit  of 
life  which  we  call  God.  Here,  they  know,  in  this  eter- 
nal, infinite,  and  loving  spirit,  "  in  which  [they]  live 
and  move  and  have  [their]  being,"  is  the  ideal  life  of 
the  universe,  and  therefore  the  ideal  life  of  man;  and 
it  is  the  secret  of  this  life  which  they  are  yearning  to 
gain  for  the  upbuilding  of  their  souls  and  the  perfect- 
ing of  their  lives.  And  how  shall  they  possess  them- 
selves of  this  spirit  of  ideal  life  if  not  by  following  the 
example  of  the  artist  in  his  quest  of  beauty  and  the 
musician  in  his  quest  of  song?  Just  as  the  student 
of  art  gains  his  power  to  paint  his  canvases  by  long 
and  patient  communion  with  the  spirit  of  beauty,  as 
this  spirit  has  become  incarnate  and  thus  revealed  in 
the  supreme  artistic  geniuses  of  the  world  —  just  as 
the  student  of  music  finds  his  ability  to  pour  forth  his 
soul  in  immortal  harmonies  by  patient  meditation  upon 
the  spirit  of  great  music,  as  this  spirit  has  become 
incarnate  and  thus  revealed  in  the  great  masters  of  the 
ages  past  —  so  also  may  we  be  able,  to  some  extent,  to 


THE  MODERN  CONCEPTION  OF  PRAYER   177 

realise  and  fulfil  the  divine  life  by  meditating  upon  the 
deep  and  high  things  of  the  spirit  as  these  are  revealed 
first,  perhaps,  in  the  great  and  pure  souls  of  history, 
but  ultimately,  of  course,  in  nothing  short  of  the  being 
of  Almighty  God.  As  the  artist  communes  with  per- 
fect beauty,  and  so  is  himself  able  to  paint  —  as  the 
musician  communes  with  perfect  song,  and  so  is  him- 
self able  to  sing  —  so  also  may  we  commune  with  per- 
fect truth,  perfect  justice,  perfect  love,  and  so  our- 
selves be  able  to  live!  And  what  is  this  meditation, 
this  communion,  of  which  I  speak,  but  prayer  —  just 
such  prayer  as  you  and  I  offer  up  in  our  churches 
and  sometimes  in  our  homes  —  just  such  prayer  as  the 
great  prophets  of  humanity  have  ever  offered  to  their 
God? 

What  have  we  been  doing  in  our  prayers  but  sitting 
like  the  student  of  art,  in  rapt  contemplation  before 
the  picture  of  God,  as  our  Father  who  is  in  heaven, 
and  having  our  souls,  like  the  soul  of  the  artist,  charged 
with  the  supreme  beauty  and  sublimity  of  this  concep- 
tion? What  have  we  been  doing  in  our  prayers  but 
sitting  like  the  student  of  music,  listening  to  the  divine 
melody  of  the  voice  of  God,  and  having  our  lives  trans- 
figured by  the  ravishing  and  inspiring  wonder  of  it  all? 
What  is  any  prayer  but  the  losing  of  ourselves,  as  stu- 
dents of  life,  in  the  thought  of  God,  as  the  student  of 
art  loses  himself  in  the  thought  of  beauty  or  the  stu- 
dent of  music  in  the  thought  of  song?  What  is  any 
prayer,  spoken  in  public  or  in  private,  in  the  church  or 
in  the  closet,  "  uttered  or  unexpressed,"  but  our  feeble, 


178  RELIGION  FOR  TO-DAY 

^halting  human  way  of  meditating  upon  God,  commun- 
ing with  God,  surrendering  to  God,  trying  as  best  we 
can  to  see  and  hear  and  know  God,  and  thus  transform 
our  souls  into  the  likeness  of  his  spirit? 

Prayer  is  meditation,  communion,  self-surrender. 
It  is  u  the  soul's  sincere  desire  "  to  be  like  God.  It  is 
the  meeting  of  spirit  with  spirit  —  the  spirit  of  man 
with  that  spirit  of  God  which  is  "  nearer  [to  us]  than 
breathing,  closer  than  hands  and  feet."  Emerson  has 
given  us  the  final  definition  and  justification  of  prayer, 
in  his  famous  saying,  that  "  Prayer  is  looking  at  life 
from  the  highest  point  of  view."  When  we  pray  we 
consciously  withdraw  ourselves  for  a  moment  from  the 
world,  that  we  may  go  to  a  high  place,  as  Jesus 
went  on  to  the  Mount  of  Transfiguration,  and  look  at 
life  from  this  viewpoint  —  the  viewpoint  not  of  time  but 
of  eternity,  not  of  earth  but  of  heaven,  not  of  matter 
but  of  spirit,  not  of  man  but  of  God.  "  Prayer,"  I 
repeat,  "  is  looking  at  life  from  the  highest  point  of 
view  " —  it  is  the  attitude  of  reverence  before,  and  sur- 
render to,  all  that  is  better  and  higher  than  ourselves. 
It  is  thinking  on  "  whatsoever  things  are  true,  whatso- 
ever things  are  honest,  whatsoever  things  are  just, 
whatsoever  things  are  pure,  whatsoever  things  are 
lovely,  whatsoever  things  are  of  good  report."  "  Think 
on  these  things,"  said  St.  Paul  —  in  other  words,  pray 
—  and  behold  the  God  of  Peace  shall  be  with  you ! 

Here  is  what  I  regard  as  the  true  conception  of 
prayer  —  certainly  that  conception  which  has  been 
understood  and  expressed  by  the  great  prophetic  souls 


THE  MODERN  CONCEPTION  OF  PRAYER    179 

of  the  past.  And  notice  now,  if  you  will,  how  directly 
opposed  is  this  conception  to  that  more  familiar  idea 
of  prayer  against  which  we  found  so  many  serious 
objections.  Prayer,  as  it  is  still  understood,  unfor- 
tunately, by  the  overwhelming  majority  of  men 
throughout  the  world,  is  nothing  more  nor  less,  as  we 
have  seen,  than  a  petition  addressed  to  God  for  some 
transformation  of  the  orderly  process  of  nature,  some 
interruption  in  the  unvarying  sequence  of  cause  and 
effect,  some  interference  with  the  natural  course  of  hu- 
man events,  which  will  redound  to  the  benefit  of  the  per- 
son who  is  praying.  Prayer,  as  commonly  practised 
both  in  the  past  and  in  the  present,  has  concerned  itself 
exclusively  with  such  phenomena  as  rainfalls,  storms, 
cataclysms,  sickness  and  disease,  the  issues  of  battle, 
the  fall  of  dynasties  and  kingdoms, —  things  "  of  the 
earth  earthy."  It  has  been  our  persistent  and  insis- 
tent request  for  changes  in  the  physical  and  social 
world  —  or,  as  we  would  express  it  in  theological  terms, 
for  a  change  in  the  mind  or  the  will  of  God. 

Now  all  this  is  completely  reversed  by  this  new  con- 
ception of  prayer,  which  I  have  just  been  trying  to  in- 
terpret. A  prayer,  from  the  new  point  of  view,  is  an 
effort  not  to  change  God,  but  to  change  ourselves. 
It  is  an  endeavour  not  to  adapt  the  mind  of  God  to  our 
selfish  ambitions  and  trivial  desires,  but  to  adapt  our 
minds  to  the  august  will  of  the  Most  High.  It  is  an 
attempt  not  to  persuade  God  to  reduce  the  universe 
to  the  measure  of  our  existence,  but  to  persuade  our 
souls  to  be  enlarged  to  the  measure  of  the  divine  pur- 


180  RELIGION  FOR  TO-DAY 

pose.  We  pray  not  in  order  that  we  may  "  reconcile 
the  ways  of  God  to  man,"  as  Alexander  Pope  put  it, 
but,  on  the  contrary,  that  we  may  reconcile  man  to  the 
unchanging  ways  of  God.  Prayer,  when  truly  under- 
stood and  practised,  is  concerned  not  with  the  physical 
but  with  the  spiritual  world;  it  seeks  a  change  not 
in  the  outer  but  in  the  inner  realm;  it  is  directed  not 
at  the  mind  of  God  but  at  the  heart  of  man!  When 
George  Washington  knelt  in  the  snows  of  Valley  Forge 
and  lifted  up  his  soul  to  God,  he  prayed  not  in  order 
that  he  might  persuade  God  to  bring  victory  to  his 
arms,  but  in  order  that,  by  his  contemplation  of  the 
divine  presence  and  his  surrender  to  the  divine  pur- 
poses, his  faltering  soul  might  be  transformed  from 
weakness  to  strength.  When  Socrates  offered  up  his 
prayer  to  the  gods  of  Athens,  under  the  shadow 
of  the  famous  plane-tree  on  the  banks  of  the  Ilissus 
River,  he  prayed  not  because  he  thought  he  could 
persuade  the  deities  to  alter  their  will  toward  him, 
but  rather  because  he  knew  that  the  very  fact  of  his 
meditation  upon  the  divine  wisdom  and  his  acceptance 
of  the  divine  will  would  give  him  courage  to  meet  the 
fate  which  was  impending.  When  Benjamin  Franklin, 
rationalist  and  scholar,  arose  at  the  opening  session  of 
the  Constitutional  Convention  in  Philadelphia,  and  sol- 
emnly moved  that  the  deliberations  of  each  day  be 
opened  with  prayer  to  God  for  his  blessing  and  his 
guidance,  he  was  not  thinking  that  such  prayer  would 
persuade  God  to  interfere  in  any  personal  way  with 
the  destinies  of  the  new  republic,  but  he  was  most  cer- 


THE  MODERN  CONCEPTION  OF  PRAYER    181 

tainly  thinking  that  such  prayers  would  remind  the 
assembled  statesmen  that  God  lived,  and  that  they  must 
seek,  in  his  name  and  for  his  sake,  to  find  the  true  and 
do  the  right.  Here  do  we  have  true  prayer  —  the 
prayer  that  has  been  offered  by  all  the  great  souls  in 
all  the  great  moments  of  experience.  And  the  prayer, 
let  me  point  out,  that  never  goes  unanswered!  For 
always  "  does  the  heavenly  Father  give  the  Holy  Spirit 
to  them  that  ask  him." 

The  whole  contrast  between  the  old  and  the  new, 
the  false  and  the  true,  is  given  to  us  in  impressive  form 
in  the  famous  scene  in  the  Garden  of  Gethsemane. 
Here,  in  the  moment  of  his  awful  agony,  as  you  will 
remember,  the  Nazarene  offered  up  two  prayers  to  God. 
The  first  was  the  prayer  of  his  weakness  and  fear; 
and  the  second,  the  prayer  of  his  strength  and  faith. 
In  the  one  he  prayed  that  the  cup  might  pass  from  him 
—  that  God,  in  other  words,  would  interfere  in  some 
way  with  the  dreadful  doom  which  seemed  to  be  await- 
ing him,  and  enable  him  to  escape  from  the  hands  of 
his  enemies  —  just  the  kind  of  prayer  against  which 
we  have  been  objecting  so  strenuously.  This  attitude, 
however,  lasted  but  for  a  moment.  Almost  at  once  did 
he  free  himself  from  the  terror  which  was  threatening 
to  overwhelm  him,  and  rising  to  those  sublime  heights 
with  which  his  soul  was  so  familiar,  he  breathed  forth 
that  prayer  which  stands,  I  believe,  as  the  noblest  and 
truest  which  ever  fell  from  human  lips.  "  Neverthe- 
less," he  said,  conquering  his  momentary  weakness, 
"not  as  I  will,  but  as  thou  wilt."  The  surrender  of 


182  RELIGION  FOR  TO-DAY 

man  to  God  —  the  plea  not  to  change  God's  will,  but  to 
do  God's  will  —  this  is  prayer !     As  Tennyson  puts  it : 

"  Our  wills  are  ours,  we  know  not  how, 
Our  wills  are  ours  to  make  them  thine." 

Here,  now,  is  the  true  conception  of  prayer  —  the 
prayer  which  moves  in  the  realm  of  things  spiritual  and 
not  physical,  and  works  its  changes  in  the  soul  of  man 
and  not  in  the  mind  of  God!  And  here  in  this  con- 
ception of  prayer,  which  is  so  complete  a  reversal  of  the 
popular  idea,  do  we  find  at  once  the  solution  of  all  the 
difficulties  of  which  I  spoke  at  the  beginning  of  my  ad- 
dress, and  thus  the  justification  of  prayer  as  the  nat- 
ural, spontaneous,  and  indeed  inevitable  expression  of 
the  soul's  life.  So  complete  is  this  justification  of 
prayer,  that  it  seems  to  explain  and  to  redeem  even  the 
crudest  and  most  childish  of  human  petitions  unto  God. 
The  prayer  for  rain  can  bring  no  rain,  but  by  calling 
to  men's  minds  the  thought  of  an  all-wise  God,  it  can 
reconcile  them  to  enduring  the  drought  with  patience. 
The  prayer  on  shipboard,  as  the  vessel  reels  and  shivers 
beneath  the  blast  of  the  storm,  cannot  still  the  hurri- 
cane nor  quiet  the  waters,  but  it  can  still  the  fear  and 
quiet  the  anguish  which  are  surging  within  the  hearts 
of  the  terror-stricken  passengers,  by  lifting  their  souls 
to  the  contemplation  of  the  peace  of  God's  over-brood- 
ing spirit.  The  prayer  on  the  eve  of  battle  can  insure 
no  victory  on  to-morrow's  field,  but  it  may  stir  the 
hearts  of  the  soldiers  with  such  devotion  to  the  God  of 
battles,  that  nothing  can  withstand  the  violence  of  their 


THE  MODERN  CONCEPTION  OF  PRAYER     183 

assault.  The  prayer  for  the  loved  one  who  is  ill,  can 
never  cure  the  disease,  but  by  calling  to  mind  the 
"  refuge  "  and  the  "  strength  "  of  God,  it  can  give  com- 
fort to  the  sufferer  in  his  affliction  and  help  the  watcher 
to  endure  with  patience  the  long  ordeals  of  the  day  and 
the  trying  vigils  of  the  night.  The  one  thing  that  men 
need  in  this  world  to  make  their  lives  pure  and  strong 
and  true,  is  the  consciousness  within  their  souls  of  the 
ever-living  God;  and  any  prayer,  however  crude  its 
phrase  or  childish  its  thought,  which  serves  to  create 
this  consciousness  within  the  soul,  is  to  that  extent  at 
least  worth  while.  It  is  useless  to  think  that  God  can  be 
persuaded  by  our  prayers  to  suspend  one  single  law 
on  our  behalf,  and  it  is  criminal  to  wish  that  he  could 
do  so ;  but  it  is  only  truth  to  say  that,  by  our  prayers, 
we  may  bring  ourselves  into  the  knowledge  and  the 
love  of  God,  and  therewith  gain  more  and  better  help 
than  if  suddenly  every  law  in  all  the  universe  were 
altered  to  our  benefit.  The  turn  of  one  little  button  on 
the  wall  of  my  house  sends  the  electric  current  cours- 
ing through  every  wire,  and  brings  light  to  every 
nook  and  cranny  of  the  place.  Prayer,  it  seems  to  me, 
is  the  little  button  by  which  the  love  of  God  may  be 
diverted  from  the  power-house  of  his  spirit  and  carried 
into  every  remotest  corner  of  the  human  heart.  If  the 
button  remains  untouched,  the  home  remains  in  dark- 
ness ;  so,  if  prayer  is  never  offered,  the  human  heart  is 
never  lighted  with  the  divine  presence.  But  the  power- 
house of  God  is  always  there,  and  it  only  remains  for 
me  —  not  God !  —  to  say  as  to  whether  the  eternal  life, 


184  RELIGION  FOR  TO-DAY 

there  ceaselessly  being  generated,  shall  bring  its  heat 
and  light  and  power  into  my  life. 

Prayer,  therefore,  is  a  permanent  expression  of  the 
soul's  life.  All  the  objections  which  can  be  urged 
against  it  are  objections  against  the  misconceptions 
which  have  been  placed  upon  it.  Rightly  understood, 
it  is  the  attempt  of  man  to  find  and  to  know  and  to 
love  God,  and  to  make  his  will  to  be  at  one  with  God's 
will.  As  William  Watson  puts  it  so  impressively  in 
his  little  book  on  Prayer:  "  The  purpose  of  prayer 
is  not  to  change  the  will  of  God,  but  to  make  us  fulfil 
it.  The  more  intimate  our  friendship  with  God,  the 
more  wisely  shall  we  pray.  We  shall  discern  some- 
thing of  the  design  God  is  working  out  in  us,  and  we 
shall  pray  not  because  we  want  something,  but  because 
we  are  eager  to  take  the  full  profit  of  our  heritage  and 
cultivate  that  spiritual  kinship  with  God  which  the 
world  tempts  us  to  forget."  From  this  point  of  view 
the  practice  of  prayer  is  a  spiritual  necessity,  and  its 
neglect,  as  we  witness  it  to-day,  a  spiritual  calamity. 
For  what  after  all,  in  the  words  of  Tennyson, 

"...  are  men  better  than  sheep  or  goats, 
That  nourish  a  blind  life  within  the  brain, 
If,  knowing  God,  they  lift  not  hands  in  prayer 
Both  for  themselves  and  those  who  call  them  friend  £ 
For  so  the  whole  round  earth  is  every  way 
Bound  by  gold  chains  about  the  feet  of  God." 


SOCIAL,  APPLICATIONS 


THE  CHURCH  AND  THE  WORLD 

THE  subject,  the  "  Church  and  the  World,"  is  one  which 
would  seem  to  be  about  as  general  in  character  as  any 
that  I  could  bring  to  your  attention.  It  is  not  my 
purpose,  however,  to  discuss  this  subject  in  any  ab- 
stract way.  On  the  contrary,  it  is  my  desire  to  speak 
as  directly  as  I  know  how  to  do  —  to  make  this  address 
to  be  not  a  statement  of  theory,  but  a  confession  of 
personal  faith. 

I  want  to  state  what  I  think  of  the  church  as  a 
human  institution,  how  I  interpret  the  place  of  the 
church  in  the  great  world  of  human  affairs,  what  I 
feel  is  the  duty  of  the  church  and  of  its  ministry  in 
relation  to  the  stupendous  problems  of  social  idealism 
which  press  so  heavily  upon  us  in  this  age.  Again 
and  again,  people  ask  me  why  I  am  so  "  extreme  "  in 
my  views  on  these  problems.  They  wonder  why  I  ex- 
pose myself  to  the  ridicule  and  abuse  which  always 
fall  upon  men  who  take  the  fanatical  attitude,  as  they 
call  it,  toward  the  questions  of  the  day.  They  plead 
with  me  to  recognise  the  facts  of  life,  to  adapt  my 
ideas  and  ideals  to  the  possibilities  inherent  in  these 
facts,  and  thus  to  achieve  the  saving  reputation  of 
common-sense.  To  all  such  inquiries  and  appeals  I 
want  this  address  to  be  an  answer.  I  speak  of  the 
general  problem  of  the  "  Church  and  the  World,"  only 

as   a  means  of  speaking  of  the  specific  and  personal 

187 


188  RELIGION  FOR  TO-DAY 

problem  of  my  professional  life.  I  am  giving  here 
my  confessio  fidei;  and  it  is  my  hope,  when  you  have 
noted  its  articles,  that  you  will  know,  even  if  you  can- 
not accept,  the  principles  which  have  long  determined, 
and  I  pray  may  ever  determine,  my  conduct  as  a  min- 
ister of  religion. 

If  we  turn  to  the  history  of  the  Christian  church, 
from  the  standpoint  of  the  general  problem  of  its 
relation  to  the  outer  world  of  practical  affairs,  we 
shall  find  that  its  attitude  has  been  determined  by  one 
or  the  other  of  two  great  theories  or  doctrines  of  ecclesi- 
astical life.  These  theories  have  never  been  clearly  dif- 
ferentiated from  one  another  —  they  intermingle  in 
nearly  every  period  of  church  history.  Indeed,  the 
story  of  the  church  might  be  not  inaccurately  inter- 
preted as  the  story  of  a  perpetual  grapple  and  conflict 
between  these  two  conceptions.  But  for  my  purpose 
in  this  address  they  can  be  separated,  and  each  de- 
scribed in  terms  of  sharp  distinction  from  the  other. 

On  the  one  hand,  as  it  is  hardly  necessary  for 
me  to  point  out,  the  church  has  been  guided  by  the 
idea  that  it  must  be  separated  from  the  world — must 
be  as  far  removed  as  possible  from  the  affairs  of  men. 
This  is  the  idea  that  prevailed  in  the  early  years  of 
Christian  history,  and  very  largely  explains  the  re- 
fusal of  the  apostles  and  their  successors  to  identify 
themselves  in  any  way  with  the  contemporary  life 
of  the  Roman  Empire.  When  these  early  Christians 
fled  to  abandoned  fields  outside  the  city  walls,  took 
refuge  in  humble  homes  on  inconspicuous  streets,  even 


THE  CHURCH  AND  THE  WORLD   189 

buried  themselves  in  the  dark  corridors  of  the  cata- 
combs, to  hold  their  meetings,  they  were  undoubt- 
edly seeking  to  escape  the  pains  of  persecution;  but 
these  acts  may  well  be  taken  also  as  symbolical  of 
the  determination  of  the  followers  of  Christ  to  cut 
themselves  off  as  far  as  possible  from  all  connection 
with  the  followers  of  Caesar.  This  idea  of  separa- 
tion or  remoteness  was  also  dominant  in  the  Middle 
Ages,  and  of  course  explains  the  innumerable  con- 
vents and  monasteries,  each  one  of  them  a  "refuge" 
from  the  world,  which  came  in  time  to  stand  as 
the  most  distinctive  institutions  of  mediaeval  life.  And 
even  in  our  own  day  we  still  find  this  idea  present 
in  the  world  of  Christendom,  as  witness  the  orders 
and  fraternities  and  sisterhoods  which  are  so  inter- 
esting and,  I  may  add,  impressive  a  feature  of  the 
modern  so-called  "  high-church  "  type  of  Christianity. 
In  all  these  phases  of  religious  life,  we  have  the  same 
basic  conception  of  the  church,  and  of  the  relation 
of  the  church  to  the  political,  social  and  economic 
environment.  The  church  is  to  be  regarded  as  a 
thing  apart  —  an  institution  separated  utterly  from  the 
world.  It  is  a  shrine  —  a  sacred  spot  not  to  be  known 
of  those  who  walk  the  familiar  ways  of  daily  life  —  a 
"  holy  of  holies  "  to  be  seen  only  by  steadfast  souls 
who  have  abandoned  the  world  and  entered,  as  if  by 
anticipation,  into  the  very  courts  of  heaven. 

If  we  examine,  now,  into  the  origin  of  this  doc- 
trine of  the  church's  relation,  or  lack  of  relation,  to 
the  world,  we  shall  find  that  it  is  a  reflection 


190  RELIGION  FOR  TO-DAY 

of  two  very  distinct  theological  ideas.  In  the 
first  place,  there  is  what  we  know  as  the  "  other- 
world  "  conception  of  the  universe.  According  to  this 
idea,  this  present  world  is  only  a  temporary  abiding- 
place,  full  of  temptations  and  miseries,  doomed  in- 
evitably to  more  or  less  speedy  destruction.  In  the 
early  days  of  Christianity,  it  was  believed  that  this 
hour  of  destruction  was  near  at  hand  — "  within  the 
life-time  of  those  now  living,"  it  was  said.  With  the 
passing  of  one  generation  after  another,  however, 
and  the  ever-recurring  postponement  of  the  antici- 
pated last  day,  it  came  to  be  believed  that  this  cata- 
clysmic hour  was  destined  to  be  far  removed  into 
the  future.  But  at  the  heart  of  both  conceptions  was 
the  belief  that  this  present  world  is  a  temporary  and 
therefore  insignificant  affair.  The  real  world,  the 
true  life,  the  Kingdom  of  God,  is  over  there,  beyond 
the  grave.  This  world  is  at  the  best  a  portal  to  this 
next  world,  at  the  worst  a  barrier  against  it.  To 
overcome  this  world,  this  is  the  great  desideratum! 
To  escape  from  this  world,  as  Bunyan's  pilgrim, 
Christian,  escaped  from  the  City  of  Destruction,  this 
is  "  a  consummation  devoutly  to  be  wished."  Such  an 
achievement,  however,  is  not  possible  until  God  has 
bestowed  upon  us  the  boon  of  death.  Therefore  do 
we  have  the  church  —  an  ark  amid  the  storm,  a  re- 
fuge from  oppression,  a  "  shadow  of  a  great  rock  in 
a  weary  land."  For  ages  has  the  church  commended 
itself  as  this  way  of  escape  from  the  ills  of  life. 
And  of  course,  by  very  virtue  of  this  function,  has 


THE  CHURCH  AND  THE  WORLD   191 

the  church  found  it  necessary  to  keep  remote  from 
the  affairs  of  life  —  to  cut  itself  off  from  all  connection 
with  the  world  of  common  things.  It  is  with  the 
church  as  with  the  life-boats  of  an  ocean  liner,  to  use 
a  familiar  but  vivid  illustration.  The  steamship, 
mortally  wounded  by  collision  with  an  iceberg,  we 
will  say,  is  on  the  point  of  foundering.  Whether  she 
will  sink  in  ten  minutes  or  in  ten  hours,  nobody  can 
tell.  But  that  she  is  doomed  to  destruction,  is  evi- 
dent; and  it  is  equally  evident  that  those  who  desire 
to  be  saved  must  take  to  the  life-boats.  And  it  is  the 
one  condition  of  the  salvation  of  these  life-boats, 
that  they  shall  be  cut  loose  from  the  stricken  liner. 
Out  upon  the  sea  they  must  go,  to  await  the  arrival  of 
the  rescue  ship,  or  to  make  their  slow  and  painful 
way  to  the  nearest  shore.  So  with  the  church,  or  the 
churches!  They  are  the  life-boats,  and  the  world  the 
sinking  vessel.  To  cut  loose  and  to  stay  apart,  is  the 
one  imperative  necessity  for  these  boats  if  their  pre- 
cious freight  is  not  to  be  lost.  Hence  the  remote  or 
separated  church,  of  which  the  hermit's  cell  in  the 
desert,  or  the  monastery  walls  in  the  forest  glade  or 
on  the  mountain-side,  is  the  perfect  symbol. 

But  there  is  a  second  idea  which  has  led  to  this 
separation  of  the  church  from  the  world.  I  refer  to 
the  idea  that  the  world  is  not  only  transient  but 
wicked,  and  that  the  servants  of  God  must  avoid  con- 
tact with  it  in  order  to  keep  their  hands  clean  and  their 
hearts  pure.  The  desire  to  enter  heaven  by  antici- 
pation, so  to  speak,  and  thus  be  saved,  has  been  the 


192  RELIGION  FOR  TO-DAY 

compelling  motive,  I  have  no  doubt,  with  thousands 
and  tens  of  thousands  who  have  fled  to  the  sanctu- 
aries of  prayer  and  praise.  But  quite  as  com- 
mon has  been  the  desire  to  avoid  sin  and  the 
temptations  that  lead  to  sin.  Here  is  the  world,  a 
wicked  place  wherein  one  may  survive,  to  say  nothing 
of  prospering,  only  by  compromises,  evasions,  out- 
and-out  wrong-doing.  Here,  on  the  other  hand,  is  an 
artificial  community,  established  quite  apart  from  the 
community  of  the  world,  wherein  temptations  and 
therefore  the  occasions  of  error  are  altogether  elimi- 
nated. Here  is  a  place  where  all  our  problems  are 
solved,  our  difficulties  removed,  our  sins  forgiven. 
Here  is  a  place  where  we  can  live  as  we  would  choose 
to  live,  as  "  heirs  of  God  and  joint  heirs  with  Christ." 
It  is  obvious,  of  course,  that  such  a  place  can  be  main- 
tained thus  sacrosanct,  only  by  rigidly  excluding  from 
its  borders  all  the  contaminating  influences  of  the 
outside  world.  It  must  banish  the  world,  shut  it  out 
altogether,  keep  itself  apart  from  the  ways  and  deeds 
of  men.  But  such  a  sacrifice  of  vital  connection  with 
practical  affairs  is  worth  making,  if  only  for  the  sake 
of  this  purity  of  life  which  is  achieved.  Hence  the 
remoteness  of  the  church  from  the  world,  of  which  I 
have  been  speaking.  The  early  Christian,  worship- 
ping in  his  grotto  or  catacomb,  refusing  to  pay  taxes, 
to  engage  in  the  ordinary  social  and  political  life  of 
the  empire,  even  to  enlist  in  the  army  which  was 
fighting  on  the  frontiers  for  the  protection  of  the 
realm  against  barbarian  invasion,  is  a  perfect  em- 


THE  CHURCH  AND  THE  WORLD   193 

bodiment  of  this  conception  of  remoteness  for  the 
sake  of  purity  of  life.  Still  more  extreme  is  the  Egyp- 
tian hermit,  walling  himself  up  in  his  lonely  cell,  so 
that  he  may  not  touch  even  so  much  as  the  little 
finger  of  the  passer-by  who  gives  him  food  or  alms. 
In  every  case  do  we  have  a  church  keeping  its  de- 
votees apart,  that  they  may  live  not  according  to 
the  customs  and  laws  of  men,  but  according  to  the 
will  of  God  alone! 

It  is  for  these  two  reasons,  in  the  main,  that  the 
church  has  at  various  times  and  in  many  places  with- 
drawn from  the  world  and  maintained  itself  remote, 
or  isolated,  from  the  everyday  affairs  of  human  kind. 
The  consequences  of  this  policy  have  been  both  good 
and  bad.  On  the  one  hand,  there  can  be  no  question 
that  this  attitude  of  aloofness  from  the  world  has  re- 
sulted in  an  elevation  of  sentiment,  a  purity  of  ideal- 
ism, and  a  thoroughgoing  consistency  of  principle, 
on  the  part  of  the  church,  which  have  seldom  if  ever 
been  attained  when  the  church  and  the  world  have 
been  more  closely  inter-related.  You  may  search  the 
history  of  Christendom  in  vain  for  a  clearer  witness 
to  the  truth  and  a  nobler  devotion  to  the  right,  for 
example,  than  were  manifest  in  the  days  of  Roman 
martyrdom,  and  in  certain  periods,  both  early  and 
late,  of  the  unworldly  Middle  Ages.  On  the  other 
hand,  however,  it  is  certain  that  there  was  evil  in 
this  withdrawal  of  the  church  from  the  world,  and 
that  this  evil  on  the  whole  much  more  than  counter- 
balanced any  good  which  was  involved.  What  are 


194  RELIGION  FOR  TO-DAY 

we  to  say,  x  for  example,  of  that  notorious  double 
standard  of  morals,  by  which  a  man  determined  his 
conduct  inside  the  church  by  one  code  of  ethics  and 
his  conduct  outside  the  church  by  another  and  quite 
different  code  of  ethics,  or  by  which  a  priest  was  per- 
mitted to  do  as  a  citizen  in  the  community  what  he 
never  would  have  been  permitted  to  do  as  an  officer 
of  the  church?  It  is  doubtful  if  any  development  of 
Christianity  has  been  more  corruptive,  and  therefore 
disastrous,  than  this.  We  see  its  disease-like  rav- 
ages all  through  the  period  of  the  Dark  Ages;  and 
it  is  a  phenomenon  which  still  survives  as  the  beset- 
ting plague  of  the  sincerity  and  power  of  the  Chris- 
tain  life.  Praising  God  on  Sunday  and  worshipping 
at  the  throne  of  Mammon  on  Monday,  giving  char- 
ity to  the  poor  through  church  collections  and  rob- 
bing the  poor  through  low  wages  and  high  prices, 
forgiving  your  enemies  in  the  cathedral  and  putting 
them  to  the  sword  on  the  field  of  battle  —  this  it  is 
which  is  the  occasion  of  laughter  to  the  unbelievers 
which  are  on  earth  and  of  tears  to  the  angels  which 
are  in  heaven.  But  that  it  is  bound  to  follow  upon 
any  attempt  for  any  reason  to  sever  the  church  from 
the  world,  to  divide  the  area  of  human  experience  into 
two  parts,  the  sacred  and  the  profane,  is  as  inevitable 
as  that  the  night  shall  follow  upon  the  day.  Never 
until  men  are  made  to  see  that  the  church  and  the 
world  are  one,  will  they  be  persuaded  to  apply  to 
their  life  among  their  fellows  those  exalted  standards 
of  duty  which  we  inevitably  identify  with  the  will  of 


THE  CHURCH  AND  THE  WORLD   195 

God.  When  we  have  the  church  humanised  by  the 
world,  and  the  world  spiritualised  by  the  church,  then 
we  shall  have  that  union  of  the  law  of  God  and  the 
laws  of  men  which  will  eliminate  all  double  standards 
of  conduct,  and  give  to  us  that  redeemed  society  which 
will  be  God's  kingdom  established  upon  earth. 

More  serious,  however,  than  this  or  any  other  par- 
ticular evil  which  has  followed  upon  the  separation 
of  the  church  and  the  world,  is  the  spectacle  of  the 
abandonment  of  the  world  to  its  unhappy  fate  by  a 
church  absorbed  in  the  selfish  aims  of  its  own  se- 
curity and  honour.  Here  is  society,  with  its  injustice, 
its  corruption,  its  poverty,  its  diseases,  its  "  wars  and 
rumours  of  wars."  Here  are  the  multitudes  of  men 
and  women  subsisting  as  best  they  can  in  ignorance 
and  sin.  Here  are  all  the  want  and  misery  and  death 
which  go  to  make  up  the  sum  total  of  human  suffer- 
ing. And  here,  on  the  other  hand,  is  a  church  which 
deserts  the  world  as  Bunyan's  pilgrim  deserted  his 
wife  and  family  —  a  church  which  flees  the  presence 
of  those  who  need  so  sorely  a  physician,  as  the  friv- 
olous story-tellers  of  Boccaccio's  Decameron  fled  the 
plague-ridden  streets  of  mediaeval  Florence.  The 
church  is  beautiful,  to  be  sure,  but  what  means  this 
beauty,  when  outside  its  walls  is  ugliness  triumph- 
ant? The  "  courts  of  the  Lord  "  are  full  of  peace,  but 
of  what  avail  when  the  ways  of  men  are  full  of  con- 
tention and  bloodshed?  Here  within  the  sanctuary 
are  praises  and  prayers  and  long  sweet  hours  of  medi- 
tation, but  what  are  these  but  blasphemies  when 


196  RELIGION  FOR  TO-DAY 

without  the  sacred  places  men  kill  their  fellows, 
women  sell  their  bodies  for  a  price,  and  children  lift 
their  voices  in  vain  for  bread?  If  there  is  one  enor- 
mity upon  which  the  religious  prophets  of  all  ages 
have  heaped  with  one  voice  and  one  heart  their  un- 
ceasing, unsparing,  uncompromising  denunciations, 
it  is  this  enormity  of  an  isolated  church,  indifferent 
to,  or  at  least  apart  from,  the  sufferings  of  men  and 
the  evils  of  society. 

It  is  this  which  kindled  the  lips  of  so  ancient  a 
prophet  as  Isaiah,  when  he  denounced  "  the  multitude 
of  the  sacrifices  "  of  Israel,  "  the  burnt  offerings  of 
rams,  and  the  fat  of  fed  beasts  ....  the  vain  obla- 
tions ....  the  appointed  feasts,"  and  called  upon 
the  worshippers  of  God  to  "  cease  to  do  evil,  learn  to 
do  well,  seek  justice,  relieve  the  oppressed."  It  is 
this  which  kindles  the  lips  of  so  modern  a  prophet  as 
Rabindranath  Tagore,  when  he  bids  his  people  to 
"  leave  this  chanting  and  singing  and  telling  of  beads," 
asks  whom  they  are  worshipping  "  in  this  lonely  dark 
corner  of  a  temple  with  doors  all  shut,"  and  reminds 
them  that  God  "  is  where  the  tiller  is  tilling  the  soil 
and  the  pathmaker  is  breaking  stones  ...  he  is  with 
them  in  sun  and  shower  and  his  garment  is  covered 
with  dust."  It  is  this  which  moved  our  own  prophet, 
Edward  Carpenter,  when  he  looked  upon  York  Minster 
"  solid  and  ghostly  in  the  pale  winter  morning  .... 
all  desolate,  vast  and  desolate  ....  the  murmurs  of 
the  outer  world  fainting  along  the  roof  like  the  mur- 
mur of  the  sea  in  some  vast  sea-shell,"  and  then  looked 


THE  CHURCH  AND  THE  WORLD   197 

"without,  (where)  the  people  are  dying  of  cold  and 
starvation."  And  this  it  is  which  was  in  the  infinitely 
compassionate  heart  of  the  Master  when  he  rebuked 
the  Pharisees  for  giving  tithes  of  "  mint  and  anise  and 
cummin  "  and  neglecting  "  the  weightier  matters  of  the 
law,  justice,  mercy  and  faith."  A  thousand  prophets 
and  ten  thousand  burning  speeches  of  these  prophets, 
might  be  cited  in  denunciation  of  a  church  which  seeks 
to  save  itself  by  abandoning  the  world,  and  the  word 
of  all  would  be  to  the  same  effect  —  "  If  thou  art  offer- 
ing thy  gift  at  the  altar,  and  there  rememberest  that 
thy  brother  hath  aught  against  thee,  leave  there  thy 
gift  before  the  altar  and  go  thy  way ;  first  be  reconciled 
to  thy  brother,  and  then  come  and  offer  thy  gift." 

It  is  this  persistent  preaching  of  the  true  prophets, 
in  pity  of  an  abandoned  world,  which  has  stirred  the 
church  from  its  isolation,  and  slowly  but  surely  brought 
it  back  into  touch  with  humanity.  Certainly  it  is  this 
prophetic  doctrine  of  applied  religion  which  I  had  in 
mind,  at  the  opening  of  this  address,  as  the  second  of 
the  two  great  theories  or  doctrines  of  ecclesiastical 
life  which  have  determined  the  attitude  of  the  church 
in  relation  to  the  outer  world.  Just  as  the  theory  of 
separation  has  taken  the  church  away  from  the  world 
at  various  times  and  places,  so  also  has  the  theory  of 
identity,  or  co-operation,  brought  the  church  back  into 
touch  with  human  things.  And  never,  I  believe,  at  any 
previous  period  of  Christian  history,  has  the  church 
been  brought  so  near  to  social  facts  —  become  so  thor- 
oughly "  socialised,"  as  we  like  to  phrase  it  —  as  it 


198  RELIGION  FOR  TO-DAY 

has  to-day.  At  the  present  time,  the  justification  of 
religion  to  the  modern  mind  is  very  largely  sociolog- 
ical, and  not  theological.  -  The  significance  of  re- 
ligion is  described  to-day  almost  exclusively  in  terms 
of  service,  and  not  of  doctrine.  Not  those  who  "  cry 
Lord,  Lord,"  but  those  who  seek  "  to  do  the  will  of 
(the)  Father  which  is  in  heaven,"  are  in  our  own  age 
alone  accepted  as  the  genuine  disciples  of  the  Master. 
The  church,  isolated  from  the  world  in  the  early  and 
Middle  Ages,  for  the  reasons  which  I  have  stated,  has 
now  been  brought  back  into  the  world  —  and  this  with 
such  thoroughness  of  method  and  enthusiasm  of  spirit, 
that  it  is  altogether  probable  that  the  breaking  of  this 
union  by  divorce  will  never  again  be  allowed  to  take 
place ! 

That  the  change  from  a  church  separated  from  the 
world  to  a  church  united  with  the  world,  on  the  basis 
of  religion  applied,  is  a  great  achievement,  productive 
of  incalculable  good  to  both  the  church  and  the  world, 
nobody  would  think  for  a  moment  of  denying.  That 
this  good,  however,  is  unmixed  with  evil,  may  well 
be  doubted.  Certainly  one  unfortunate  consequence 
of  this  restoration  of  the  church  to  the  world,  unfore- 
seen, so  far  as  I  know,  by  any  of  the  great  prophets 
of  the  past,  is  becoming  more  and  more  evident  in  our 
time,  and  constitutes  to  my  mind  one  of  the  most  dis- 
turbing factors  in  the  development  of  the  modern 
church.  I  refer  to  the  fact  that  the  church,  in  coming 
back  into  the  world,  in  order  to  save  the  world  from 
its  miseries  and  sins,  is  slowly  and  unconsciously  being 


THE  CHURCH  AND  THE  WORLD   199 

made  over  into  the  likeness  of  the  world.  The  church 
is  being  dragged  down  by  the  world  to  its  own  level 
of  degradation,  wickedness  and  hypocrisy,  instead  of 
the  world  being  "  lifted  up  "  by  the  church  to  new 
levels  of  honest  thought  and  noble  feeling.  The 
world,  in  other  words,  is  bringing  corruption  to  the 
church,  instead  of  the  church  bringing  salvation  to 
the  world. 

In  the  early  days  of  Christian  history,  when 
the  church  and  its  members  were  far  removed 
from  the  social  realities  of  the  time,  Christianity  was 
characterised  by  certain  unalterable  standards  of  in- 
dividual conduct,  certain  august  ideals  of  social  life, 
certain  dreams  and  visions  and  spiritual  laws,  which 
were  inherent  in  the  very  idea  of  God  and  the  very 
example  of  Jesus  Christ.  These  standards  and  ideals, 
these  dreams  and  visions  and  laws,  from  the  stand- 
point of  the  world,  were  impracticable  and  therefore 
foolish.  Any  attempt  to  apply  them  to  the  problems 
of  human  existence  was  impossible.  Therefore  the 
world  not  only  would  not  adopt  them,  but  refused 
even  to  pay  attention  or  reverence  to  them.  And 
it  is  just  because  the  early  church  regarded  these 
divine  principles  as  dearer  than  its  own  life,  and  its 
own  mission  as  the  bearing  witness  to  these  prin- 
ciples, undiminished  and  untarnished,  at  any  cost,  that 
it  tended  to  draw  one  side  from  the  main  currents  of 
existence,  hide  within  its  shell,  so  to  speak,  and  wait 
until  the  world  was  ready  to  receive  its  whole  gospel. 
Now,  with  its  return  to  the  world,  the  church  finds 


200  RELIGION  FOR  TO-DAY 

its  principles  as  impracticable,  as  fantastically  ideal- 
istic, as  ever.  But,  believing  that  it  must  identify  it- 
self with  the  world,  must  apply  these  principles  if  it 
is  to  justify  its  existence  at  all,  it  forthwith  proceeds 
not  to  lead  the  world,  or  drag  the  world,  up  to  the  sub- 
lime elevation  of  its  own  idealism,  but  to  make  over 
this  idealism,  to  compromise  it,  qualify  it,  minimise 
it,  so  that  it  may  come  into  reasonable  touch  with  the 
world,  and  thus  meet  it  on  its  own  terms.  It  is  this 
which  has  resulted  in  the  spectacle  which  has  long 
disgraced  the  pages  of  church  history,  and  is  still  be- 
fore us  at  the  present  moment,  of  a  church  which,  in  all 
branches  of  its  denominational  life,  is  ready  for  noth- 
ing more  quickly  and  surely  than  an  opportunity  to 
dilute  its  gospel,  to  lower  its  standards,  to  make  its 
ideals  practical  by  eliminating  their  specifically  ideal- 
istic features  and  thus  making  them  unrecognisable  as 
ideals.  "  I  have  learned  to  be  all  things  to  all  men," 
said  St.  Paul,  with  quite  another  motive  in  view  than 
that  which  we  are  now  considering.  And  it  is  just  this 
lesson  of  being  "  all  things  to  all  men,"  in  the  bad 
sense  of  the  phrase,  which  the  church  has  learned 
with  a  vengeance,  to  its  own  indescribable  humilia- 
tion! What  compromise  of  individual  ethics  has 
been  too  shameless  to  receive  the  apology,  if  not  the 
sanction,  of  the  church?  What  practice  of  social  life 
has  been  too  cruel  to  escape  the  blessing  of  God's 
house?  What  law  or  custom  or  institution  of  politics 
and  industry  has  been  too  oppressive  to  be  unworthy 
of  the  support  of  the  ministers  of  Jesus  Christ?  Every 


THE  CHURCH  AND  THE  WORLD   201 

sin  has  at  one  time  or  another  had  its  priestly  apolo- 
getic, every  abomination  its  ecclesiastical  benedic- 
tion. And  all  because  the  church  has  sought,  and 
seeks  to-day,  to  be  practical,  to  get  results,  to  meet 
the  world  where  it  thinks  it  can  lead  the  world.  With 
the  result  that  it  has  forfeited  its  leadership,  cast  away 
its  authority,  sullied  its  purity,  and  —  sorrow's  crown 
of  sorrow !  —  has  achieved  as  a  matter  of  fact,  no  more 
results  than  the  church  of  an  older  day,  which  refused 
to  trail  its  garments  in  the  mire. 

The  church  in  this  age,  as  in  the  past  ages,  just  be- 
cause of  its  compromises,  its  surrenders,  its  practica- 
bilities, is  very  largely  a  "  kept  church,"  an  institution 
"  bought  and  paid  for,"  with  no  other  mission  in  life 
than  that  of  serving  the  pleasure  and  defending  the 
interests  of  those  who  seek  favours  for  a  price.  Bernard 
Shaw  is  an  accurate  reporter  of  the  situation  in  his 
biting  paragraphs  on  the  church  and  the  world  in 
his  "  Preface "  to  Major  Barbara.  "  Churches  are 
suffered  to  exist,"  he  writes,  "  only  on  condition  that 
they  preach  submission  to  the  state  as  at  present  capi- 
talistically  organised.  The  Churoh  of  England  itself 
is  compelled  to  add  to  the  thirty-six  articles  in  which 
it  formulates  its  religious  tenets,  three  more  in  which 
it  apologetically  protests  that  the  moment  any  of  these 
articles  comes  in  conflict  with  the  state  (i.  £.,  the  world), 
it  is  to  be  entirely  renounced,  abjured,  violated,  abro- 
gated and  abhorred,  the  policeman  being  a  much  more 
important  person  than  any  of  the  Persons  of  the  Trin- 
ity. And  this  is  why  no  tolerated  church  ....  can 


202  RELIGION  FOR  TO-DAY 

ever  win  the  entire  confidence  of  the  poor.  It  must  be 
on  the  side  of  the  police  and  the  military,  no  matter 
what  it  believes  or  disbelieves;  and  as  the  police  and 
the  military  are  instruments  by  which  the  rich  rob  and 
oppress  the  poor,  ...  it  is  not  possible  to  be  on  the 
side  of  the  poor  and  of  the  police  at  the  same  time. 
Indeed,  the  religious  bodies,  as  the  almoners  of  the 
rich,  become  a  sort  of  auxiliary  police,  taking  off  the 
insurrectionary  edge  of  poverty  with  coals  and  blank- 
ets, bread  and  treacle,  and  soothing  and  cheering  the 
victims  with  hopes  of  immense  and  inexpensive  happi- 
ness in  another  world,  when  the  process  of  working 
them  to  premature  death  in  the  service  of  the  rich 
is  complete  in  this  (world)." 

And  to  this  we  must  now  add,  as  Mr.  Shaw  has 
added  in  his  "  Preface  "  to  Androcles  and  the  Lion, 
the  indictment  of  the  church's  attitude  on  the  ques- 
tion of  war  —  the  surrender  of  the  church  in  every 
land  and  in  every  age,  to  the  war-lords  of  the  world. 
If  there  is  anything  that  it  would  seem  that  the 
church  must  denounce,  or,  if  not  denounce,  at  least 
refrain  from  defending,  extolling,  aiding  and  abetting, 
it  would  seem  to  be  that  slaughter  of  the  battle-field 
which  is  the  violation  of  brotherhood  and  the  sub- 
version of  the  divine  rule  of  a  universal  God.  And 
yet  the  church  to-day  and  yesterday,  with  few  excep- 
tions, lifts  its  voice  not  on  behalf  of  conciliation  and 
goodwill,  but  on  behalf  of  enmity,  hatred,  collective 
homicide.  "  If  Christianity  were  now  abolished  and 
exiled  by  the  Defence  of  the  Realm  Act,"  says  Mr. 


THE  CHURCH  AND  THE  WORLD   203 

Israel  Zangwill,  in  his  The  War  for  the  World,  "  there 
would  be  no  difference  whatever  visible  in  the  function- 
ing of  the  state  and  the  prosecution  of  the  war."  And 
all  because,  as  I  have  been  saying,  the  church  has  been 
willing  to  sell  its  birthright  for  the  mess  of  pottage 
known  as  practical  results.  All  because  the  church  has 
been  willing  to  compromise  every  principle,  to  qualify 
every  ideal,  to  voice 

"  the  easy  speeches 
That  comfort  cruel  men." 

"At  the  outbreak  of  the  war,"  says  the  Dean  of  Dur- 
ham, England,  with  more  frankness  than  is  used  by 
the  ordinary  prelate,  "  men  awoke  to  the  discovery 
that  Christendom  was  really  swayed  by  motives  which 
had  no  pretence  of  being  Christian,  and  that  the 
churches  had  become  parasitic,  bestowing  their  facile 
consecrations  on  every  national  ambition,  and  failing 
to  rebuke  any  national  crime." 

Now  it  is  just  at  this  point,  and  on  this  particular 
matter,  that  I  would  speak  my  protest.  I  believe  most 
emphatically  that  the  church  should  not  in  any  sense 
be  apart  from  the  world,  but  on  the  contrary  should  be 
in  the  world,  lead  the  world,  change  the  world,  rebuild 
the  world.  If  there  is  any  one  gospel  that  I  am  here 
in  this  pulpit  to  preach,  it  is  the  gospel  of  "  social 
religion,"  which  is  the  gospel  of  a  church  come  into 
the  world,  in  the  spirit  of  Christ,  to  save  the  world. 
But  I  also  believe  most  emphatically  that  the  church 
should  come  into  the  world  not  to  accept  the  standards 


204  RELIGION  FOR  TO-DAY 

of  the  world  as  the  basis  of  relationship,  but  to  set 
its  own  standards,  without  surrender  of  a  single  jot  or 
tittle  of  their  absolute  idealism.  I  confess  that  I  can 
see  no  distinctive  mission  for  the  church  in  the  world 
save  that  of  an  institution  dedicated  to  the  perfect 
ideal,  the  absolute  principle,  the  unalterable  law  of 
the  spiritual  cosmos.  I  confess  that  I  can  see  no 
justification  for  the  church  save  as  a  witness  of  that 
eternal  and  infinite  God,  who  is  the  same  yesterday, 
to-day  and  forever,  "  with  whom  is  no  variableness, 
neither  shadow  of  turning."  There  are  plenty  of  other 
forces  in  the  world  to  point  the  way  of  expediency,  to 
show  the  goal  of  practicability,  to  preach  the  easy 
gospel  of  adaptation,  compromise,  evasion.  It  is  not 
difficult  to  find  business  men  to  remind  you  of  the 
truth  of  the  saying  that  "  business  is  business  " —  not 
difficult  to  find  politicians  to  show  you  the  prosperous 
ways  of  falsehood  and  deceit,  not  difficult  in  this  age 
to  find  defenders  of  patriotism,  preparedness  and  wars 
for  righteousness.  The  world  is  full  of  these  expo- 
nents of  expediency  as  a  sound  philosophy  of  life.  The 
church  only  loses  itself  in  the  crowd  when  it  joins  the 
witness  of  its  voice  to  the  vociferous  clamours  of  the 
hour.  It  is  only  doing  shamelessly  in  the  name  of  God, 
forsooth,  what  men  themselves  are  doing,  without  any 
necessity  of  spiritual  prompting,  in  the  name  of  their 
own  selfish  interests  and  desires.  What  the  world 
needs,  what  the  world  must  have  if  it  is  to  be  saved 
spiritually,  is  men,  or  institutions,  which  will  proclaim 
justice  though  the  heavens  fall  —  which  will  declare 


THE  CHURCH  AND  THE  WORLD   205 

that  "  right  is  right  since  God  is  God,"  and  will  "  sink 
or  swim,  live  or  die,  survive  or  perish,"  on  the  merit 
of  that  simple  proposition  —  which  will  set  up  as  the 
guiding  principle  of  their  lives  the  affirmation  of  the 
prophet,  Balaam,  "  I  cannot  go  beyond  the  word  of 
the  Lord,  my  God,  to  do  less  or  more."  And  where 
shall  the  world  find  the  satisfaction  of  this  great  need 
if  not  in  a  church  which  is  unswervingly  faithful  to 
the  best,  the  highest,  the  truest  that  has  ever  been  re- 
vealed to  it  from  the  mind  of  God? 

It  is  this  conviction  of  mine  about  the  duty  of  the 
church  and  of  its  members  to  preach  ideal  truths 
and  espouse  ideal  causes,  with  no  question  about 
feasible  methods  and  practical  consequences,  which 
dictates  my  conduct  in  my  profession.  I  believe  in 
all  seriousness  that  I  am  a  minister  of  a  church  not 
of  New  York,  or  America,  or  Unitarianism,  but  of 
God.  I  believe  that  I  am  pledged,  by  my  ordination 
vows,  to  proclaim  not  the  passions  and  prejudices 
and  whims  of  men,  but  the  perfect  will  of  God  so  far 
as  it  is  given  to  me  to  see  that  will.  I  believe  that  it 
is  my  duty,  as  a  minister  of  religion,  to  serve  not  the 
interests  of  any  class,  or  any  nation,  or  any  social 
order,  but  the  interests  of  that  Kingdom  of  God  which 
has  not  yet  been  established  upon  earth.  It  is  not 
for  me,  as  the  minister  of  the  church,  to  consider 
whether  a  certain  individual  act  is  unavoidable,  but 
only  whether  it  is  wrong.  It  is  not  for  me  to  ask 
whether  a  certain  social  reform  is  impracticable,  but 
only  whether  it  is  just.  It  is  not  my  business  to  ex- 


206  RELIGION  FOR  TO-DAY 

plain  or  apologise  or  excuse  or  palliate;  rather  is  it 
my  business  to  define  the  standard,  point  the  ideal, 
declare  "  Thus  saith  the  Lord !  " 

Is  it  a  question,  we  will  say,  of  human  freedom  —  the 
freedom  of  woman  from  social  disabilities,  of  the  black 
man  from  social  outlawry,  of  the  Jew  from  prejudice 
and  oppression,  of  the  workingman  from  wage  slavery? 
Then  it  is  not  for  me  to  bother  with  the  difficulties  in 
the  way  of  emancipation,  the  dangers  involved  in  lifting 
the  yoke  of  bondage,  the  losses  suffered  by  those  now 
happily  placed  in  positions  of  privilege  and  power. 
Rather  is  it  for  me  simply  to  make  plain  that  free- 
dom to-day,  as  yesterday,  is  a  condition  of  "  life  more 
abundantly "  for  men  and  women,  the  fulfilment  of 
that  will  of  God  which  is  "  the  law  of  liberty,"  and 
therefore  a  principle  which  must  be  universally  es- 
tablished. Is  it  the  question  of  poverty?  It  is  not 
for  me  to  show  how  inevitable  is  poverty  as  a  social 
phenomenon,  to  emphasise  how  impracticable  if  not 
impossible  is  every  method  which  has  ever  been  de- 
vised for  its  abolition  or  considerable  amelioration, 
or  to  bid  men  to  be  patient  under  the  burdens  of 
wretchedness  which  poverty  imposes  upon  them. 
Rather  is  it  for  me  to  point  out,  without  qualification 
or  evasion,  that  poverty  is  a  crime,  a  preposterous 
defiance  of  divine  providence,  an  impossible  obstacle 
to  the  establishment  of  God's  kingdom,  and  some- 
how, some  way,  must  be  destroyed.  Or  take  the 
question  of  war !  Shall  I  use  my  position,  as  a  minis- 
ter of  religion,  to  outrival  the  diplomats,  warriors 


THE  CHURCH  AND  THE  WORLD   207 

and  munition  manufacturers  of  our  time  in  praising 
war  as  sometimes  beneficent,  or  excusing  it  as  some- 
times necessary,  and  in  using  my  utmost  powers  to  in- 
duce men  to  enter  the  ranks  of  war  when  hostilities 
have  come  upon  the  world?  War  may  be  as  inevi- 
table or  as  sublime  upon  occasion,  as  you  please.  It 
may  be  as  glorious  to  defend  our  country  or  invade 
another's  country,  as  the  poets  have  told  us  for  un- 
numbered years.  Every  proposed  method  of  abolish- 
ing war  may  have  long  since  proved  a  failure.  But 
I  am  here  to  proclaim  the  fatherhood  of  God,  the 
brotherhood  of  man,  the  law  of  love.  These  know 
no  exceptions,  no  qualifications  —  they  are  as  unalter- 
able as  the  laws  which  hold  the  planets  in  their  courses. 
And  with  them  the  phenomenon  of  war  under  all  con- 
ditions and  in  all  places  is  absolutely  inconsistent. 
This  message  may  be  unpatriotic,  impracticable,  dan- 
gerous. I  would  not  deny  the  accusation.  But  this 
does  not  in  any  way  alter  the  fact  that  this  message 
is  the  only  message  which  can  find  any  place  in  re- 
ligion. Therefore  is  it  the  only  message  which  I,  as 
a  minister  of  religion,  have  a  right  to  preach,  with- 
out betraying  the  trust  committed  to  my  charge.  A 
friend  of  mine  in  England,  a  minister  of  a  Unitarian 
church  in  one  of  the  largest  cities  in  the  kingdom, 
has  beautifully  defined  the  duty  of  the  minister  in  time 
of  war,  in  a  recent  letter  — "  We  believe,"  he  says, 
"  that  it  is  not  the  business  of  the  Church  of  Christ 
anywhere  to  preach  war  (even  in  time  of  war)  or  to 
help  war,  but  persistently  to  preach  peace,  and  love, 


208  RELIGION  FOR  TO-DAY 

and  reconciliation,  though  it  may  be  to  deaf  ears  and 
maddened  brains." 

Such  is  my  interpretation  of  my  task  as  a  Chris- 
tian minister.  Of  course,  at  bottom,  I  would  go  much 
farther  than  this.  I  would  assert  that  it  is  the  duty 
of  every  man,  just  because  he  is  a  man  and  therefore 
a  child  of  God,  to  stand  for  the  uncompromised  ideal 
—  to  "  hew  to  the  line,  let  the  chips  fall  where  they 
may  " —  to  be  a  fanatic,  if  you  will.  Such  men,  hated 
and  despised  of  their  own  time,  have  in  later  times 
been  seen  to  be  the  saviours  of  mankind.  But  this 
wider  question  I  do  not  at  this  moment  consider.  My 
concern  is  with  the  church  and  the  world,  with  the 
minister  as  a  leader  of  the  church  in  the  world.  And 
I  say  to  you  that  it  is  his  duty  to  proclaim  and  serve 
the  absolute  ideal.  That  this  ideal  will  be  perfectly 
realised  now  is  not  to  be  expected.  It  is  the  tragic 
irony  of  life  that,  with  society  now  ordered  as  it  is, 
no  one  of  us  is  able  to  live  the  ideal  which  we  see. 
But  the  ideal  is  there,  as  God  is  in  his  heaven.  And 
it  is  the  church's  specific  and  glorious  task  to  keep  this 
ideal  as  the  treasure  of  the  Most  High,  and  commend 
it  to  the  heedless  world.  It  is  the  recognition  of  this 
fact  that,  in  an  earlier  time,  led  men  to  make  the 
church  a  place  remote  —  they  sought  to  save  and  serve 
the  ideal  apart  from  a  lost  world.  But  this  to-day  we 
cannot  do.  The  church  must  be  in  the  world  —  in  it, 
but  not  of  it.  It  must  be  in  it,  and  yet  above  it,  as  the 
star  is  above  the  trackless  sea;  in  it,  and  yet  beyond 
it,  as  the  mount  of  vision  is  beyond  the  rocky  steep. 


THE  CHURCH  AND  THE  WORLD      209 

This  it  is  which  Jehovah  spoke  to  Solomon,  at  the 
dedication  of  the  temple  upon  Mt.  Zion.  "  If  now 
thou  wilt  walk  before  me  with  integrity  of  heart  and 
in  uprightness,  even  thou  and  this  people,  then  will  I 
hallow  this  house  which  thou  hast  built,  to  put  my 
name  there  forever;  and  mine  eyes  and  my  heart  will 
be  there  perpetually.  But  if  ye  shall  at  all  turn  from 
following  me,  ye  or  your  children,  then  shall  this 
congregation  be  a  proverb  and  a  by-word  among  all 
people." 

That  "  this  congregation "  may  not  "  at  all  turn 
from  following "  God,  but  "  walk  before  (him)  with 
integrity  of  heart  and  in  uprightness,"  and  that  God 
may  thus  "hallow  this  house,"  and  "put  (his)  name 
here  forever  " —  this  is  my  prayer.  I  beseech  you  to 
join  in  this  prayer,  and  to  labour  unceasingly  for  its 
fulfilment. 


LEGISLATION  AND  MORALS:  CAN  WE  MAKE 
PEOPLE  GOOD  BY  LAW? 

MY  subject  is  the  general  problem  of  "  Legislation  and 
Morals  " ;  or,  more  specifically,  the  discussion  of  the 
question  as  to  whether  we  can  ever  hope  to  make  people 
good  by  due  process  of  law. 

This  question  is  as  old,  in  Christian  history,  as  the 
discussion  by  St.  Paul,  in  his  epistles  to  the  Galatians 
and  to  the  Romans,  of  the  relation  between  what  he 
called  the  Law  upon  the  one  hand  and  the  spirit  of 
Christ  upon  the  other.  Five  hundred  years,  however, 
before  these  letters  were  written,  this  same  problem 
was  a  favourite  subject  of  discussion  among  the 
philosophers  of  Athens,  and  became  the  central  theme 
of  the  greatest  book  which  any  one  of  these  philoso- 
phers ever  produced  —  namely,  the  Republic  of 
Plato.  How  much  farther  back  this  question  goes  I 
cannot  say,  nor  is  it  perhaps  necessary  that  we  should 
ascertain.  For  what  concerns  us  here  is  not  the  fact 
that  this  problem  as  to  the  relation  between  the  legis- 
lation of  the  state  and  the  morals  of  its  citizens  is 
as  ancient  as  Plato  or  perhaps  even  Moses,  but  the 
fact  that  this  problem  is  modern  as  well  as  ancient, 
and  is  pressing  upon  our  attention  to-day  more 
insistently  perhaps  than  ever  before  in  the  whole 
history  of  the  world.  For  we  are  living  in  an  age,  are 
we  not,  which  is  pre-eminently  an  age  of  legislation. 

210 


LEGISLATION  AND  MORALS 

Here  in  the  United  States,  for  example,  we  have  the 
national  Congress  in  Washington,  sitting  most  of  the 
time  from  year's  end  to  year's  end,  and  no  less  than 
forty-eight  independent  legislatures,  sitting  some  of 
them  at  intervals  of  three  or  four  years,  but  many  of 
them  at  some  period  every  year  —  and  all  of  these 
various  legislative  bodies  pouring  forth  laws  just  as 
fast  apparently  as  they  can  be  drafted  and  enacted. 
Never  before,  we  are  told  by  competent  historians, 
have  men  been  so  obsessed  with  the  idea  that  all  the 
problems  of  life,  both  individual  and  social,  can  be 
solved  for  all  time  by  the  simple  process  of  legislation, 
as  they  are  to-day.  Under  the  steady  pressure  of 
public  opinion,  thousands  of  new  laws  are  being  placed 
upon  the  statute-books  every  year;  and  the  great 
majority  of  these  laws  pertain  not  at  all  to  the  tradi- 
tional task  of  raising  and  expending  money  for  the  sup- 
port of  the  ordinary  functions  of  government,  but  to 
the  newer  task  of  regulating  and  controlling  the  daily 
conduct  of  the  people,  in  order  that  evil  may  be 
abolished  and  good  may  be  established  in  its  place. 
The  number  of  hours  that  men  and  women  shall 
work  (per  day  or  per  week),  the  wages  which  they  shall 
receive  for  their  labour,  the  age  at  which  children 
shall  be  allowed  to  go  to  work,  the  amount  of  air  and 
light  in  our  factories  and  houses,  the  quality  of  the 
food  that  we  eat,  the  character  of  the  clothing  that 
we  wear,  the  conditions  under  which  we  shall  be 
allowed  to  read  books  or  see  plays  at  the  theatre,  the 
physical  condition  of  candidates  for  marriage,  the 


RELIGION  FOR  TO-DAY 

hour  at  which  children  shall  be  taken  off  the  city 
streets,  the  length  of  the  sheets  upon  the  beds  of 
hotels,  and  of  course  the  immemorial  problems  of 
drink  and  gambling  and  prostitution  —  all  these  and 
countless  other  details  of  private  and  social  life  are 
being  taken  within  the  pale  of  legislation,  so  that  the 
task  of  knowing  what  is  legal  and  what  is  illegal  is 
really  becoming  one  of  the  most  serious  problems  of 
existence.  Whenever  we  see  an  evil,  or  think  we  see 
an  evil  —  pass  a  law  against  it !  This  seems  to  be  the 
great  ideal  of  our  time;  and  most  of  us  seem  to  be 
pretty  definitely  of  the  opinion  that  if  we  can  only 
get  laws  enough  enacted  to  cover  every  evil  of  human 
life,  the  millennium  will  forthwith  be  ushered  in.  The 
establishment  of  the  Kingdom  of  God,  in  other  words, 
is  postponed  by  nothing  more  serious  than  our  failure 
to  provide  an  all-inclusive  and  therefore  perfect  legal 
code. 

Now  it  is  just  this  amazing  development  of  legis- 
lative activity  within  recent  years  which  has  made 
the  old  question  as  to  the  relation  between  legislation 
and  morals,  as  I  have  said,  one  of  the  most  press- 
ing problems  of  our  age  and  generation.  For  in 
spite  of  the  very  strong  popular  trend  in  favour  of  new 
and  better  laws,  there  is  still  a  very  large  and  respect- 
able body  of  persons  who  have  no  faith  at  all  in  the 
efficacy  of  legislation  as  a  moral  agent.  These  per- 
sons hold  the  categorical  opinion  that  you  simply 
cannot  make  people  good  by  law  —  that  you  cannot 
transform  character  by  fiat !  You  may  pass  as  many 


LEGISLATION  AND  MORALS 

laws  as  you  please  —  you  may  establish  any  political 
and  industrial  order  that  you  may  think  wise  —  you 
may  bring  in  the  Kingdom  of  God  by  legislative 
enactment  till  the  crack  o'  doom  —  but  human  nature 
is  still  human  nature,  the  bad  man  is  still  the  bad 
man  and  the  vicious  woman  still  the  vicious  woman, 
and  therefore  all  your  laws  must  remain  ineffectual 
and  all  your  elaborate  social  schemes  go  absolutely  for 
naught.  Men  are  exactly  the  same  men  under  the 
laws  of  to-day,  as  they  were  under  the  laws  of  yester- 
day, and  therefore  the  status  of  individual  character 
and  the  actual  condition  of  morality  remain  to  all 
intents  and  purposes  the  same.  Utopias  have  been 
established  before  now.  More  than  one  group  of  men 
and  women  has  come  together,  has  adopted  an  ideal 
code  of  law,  and  has  then  proceeded  to  show  the  world 
how  the  fruits  of  the  spirit  flourished  in  such  a  favour- 
able legal  climate.  But  every  such  community  has 
sooner  or  later  broken  down,  for  no  other  reason 
under  heaven  than  that  men  were  men,  and  women 
women,  and  its  members  therefore  the  same  imperfect, 
quarrelsome,  jealous,  ambitious,  sinful  persons  within 
the  Utopia  that  they  had  been  in  the  outside  world 
which  knew  nothing  of  perfect  laws.  The  long  and 
short  of  the  matter  is  that  the  problem  of  morals  is  a 
problem  not  of  society  at  all,  but  of  the  single  individ- 
ual. The  task  of  making  people  good  is  a  task  which 
takes  us  not  into  the  field  of  social  order,  but  into 
the  field  of  spiritual  purpose.  The  only  way  to 
achieve  any  sure  and  lasting  moral  progress  is  to  deal 


RELIGION  FOR  TO-DAY 

direct  with  the  human  heart.  We  must  take  hold 
of  the  individual  man,  and  change  his  selfishness 
into  unselfishness,  his  greed  into  generosit}^  his  hatred 
into  love  —  and  this  means  not  laws  or  statutes,  not 
executive  decrees  or  judicial  decisions,  but  the  old 
and  well-tried  processes  of  moral  and  religious  edu- 
cation. If  a  man  hates  the  good  and  loves  the  evil, 
it  makes  little  difference  what  we  do  in  the  line  of  legis- 
lation. He  will  still  remain  a  creature  of  darkness  and 
not  of  light.  And  if  a  man  loveth  righteousness  and 
hateth  iniquity,  then  again  it  makes  little  difference 
what  may  or  may  not  be  our  laws.  This  man  will  still 
remain  a  son  of  God  and  a  servant  of  all  good.  The 
essential  thing  is  the  attitude  of  the  soul  —  and  this 
can  be  strengthened  in  its  good,  or  transformed  from 
evil  into  good,  not  by  laws  of  any  kind,  but  only  by 
those  sweet  and  gracious  influences  of  the  spirit  which 
have  ever  played  upon  mankind  in  some  degree  or 
other,  and  never  wholly  without  avail. 

An  impressive  illustration  of  this  point  of  view 
was  furnished  us  not  long  ago,  it  so  happened,  by 
a  striking  article  in  an  issue  of  the  Forum  magazine, 
by  the  well-known  ex-Mayor  of  Toledo,  Ohio,  Mr. 
Brand  Whitlock,  on  that  most  discouraging  and 
appalling  of  all  moral  problems,  the  social  evil.  In 
the  discussion  of  the  question  as  to  what  we  can  do 
in  the  way  of  grappling  with  this  evil,  Mr.  Whitlock 
refers  in  scathing  terms  to  the  various  vice  commis- 
sions, which  have  been  doing  such  systematic  work  in 
recent  years,  and  especially  to  the  Chicago  Vice 


LEGISLATION  AND  MORALS 

Commission,  with  its  declaration  that  the  social  evil 
must  be  met  by  a  policy  of  "  constant  and  persistent 
repression,"  in  the  hope  of  an  ultimate  "  annihilation 
of  prostitution."  No  one  of  these  commissions,  says 
our  author,  (least  of  all  the  Chicago  body,)  has  any- 
thing to  recommend,  after  all  their  months  of  investi- 
gation and  discussion,  but  more  laws  and  a  more  rigid 
and  continuous  enforcement  of  these  laws.  All 
unattended  boys  and  girls  must  be  sent  home  by 
the  police  at  nine  o'clock  at  night;  there  must  be  no 
seats  in  the  public  parks  in  the  shadows ;  there  must  be 
a  special  morals  police  squad  to  handle  the  traffickers  in 
this  hideous  trade;  the  sale  of  liquor  in  houses  of  ill- 
fame  must  be  prohibited;  dance-halls  must  be  regu- 
lated and  guarded;  steamboats,  employment  bureaus, 
and  lodging-houses  must  be  more  carefully  inspected ; 
assignation  hotels  must  be  closed  and  kept  closed! 
These  are  the  recommendations  of  our  commissions, 
says  Mr.  Whitlock  — "  more  law  and  more  hounding 
by  the  police."  And  he  goes  on  to  give  it  as  his  opin- 
ion that  such  an  appeal  to  legislation,  for  the  solution 
of  this  evil,  is  bound  to  fail  to-day,  just  as  it  has  always 
failed  "  with  all  the  machinery  of  all  the  laws  of  all  the 
lawgivers  in  history."  Solon  tried  every  device  in 
the  Athens  of  his  day,  and  failed  completely  to 
accomplish  anything.  In  Rome  there  were  the  sever- 
est repressive  laws  in  all  the  ancient  world,  and  yet 
Gibbon  tells  us  that  immorality  was  always  at  its 
height  when  the  laws  were  most  rigorous  and  their 
enforcement  the  most  terrible.  Charlemagne  tried 


216  RELIGION  FOR  TO-DAY 

the  same  policy,  and  had  to  confess  himself  defeated. 
Philip  II,  of  Spain,  tried  to  do  what  his  father,  Charles 
V,  had  failed  to  do,  but  he  found  that  his  untiring 
efforts  were  without  avail.  John  Calvin  in  Geneva 
was  as  remorseless  in  his  treatment  of  prostitutes 
as  was  Peter  the  Great  in  Russia,  but  the  only  result 
of  his  inquisitions  was  to  make  Geneva  the  vilest  city 
in  all  of  Europe.  The  English  Puritans  whipped 
the  prostitute,  pilloried  her,  branded  her,  imprisoned 
her,  and  for  a  second  offence  put  her  to  death — but  it 
amounted  all  to  nothing.  And  what  are  we  doing  at 
this  very  moment,  but  following  exactly  the  same 
policy,  along  somewhat  -gentler  and  more  humanita- 
rian lines?  In  every  city  in  America  prostitution  is  a 
crime;  and  yet  every  police  station  in  every  one  of 
these  cities  has  an  accurate  list  of  the  houses  of  ill- 
fame  in  its  particular  precinct,  prostitutes  are  among 
the  most  familiar  figures  upon  our  streets,  and  Mayor 
Whitlock  testifies  to  the  fact  that  one  night,  when  he 
was  in  the  night  court  of  Toledo,  he  saw  a  magistrate 
fine  a  street  walker,  and  then  suspend  the  fine  so  that 
she  might  go  out  and  "  earn  "  enough  money  to  pay 
the  fine! 

Nothing  that  mankind  has  ever  tried  along  these 
lines,  says  Mr.  Whitlock,  has  been  of  the  slightest  avail 
in  solving  the  problem  of  prostitution.  And  what  is 
true  in  this  case  is  true  also  in  the  case  of  such  familiar 
evils  as  gambling  and  drinking.  The  resort  to  law 
and  the  enforcement  of  law  is  not  only  useless  but 
worse  than  useless.  It  not  only  fails,  but  time  and 


LEGISLATION  AND  MORALS 

again  it  actually  stimulates  and  intensifies  the  evil 
which  it  is  supposed  to  correct.  In  the  great  majority 
of  cases,  of  course,  the  law  is  not  enforced.  Where 
an  honest  attempt  is  made  at  enforcement,  it  is 
usually  unsuccessful,  and  nothing  more  is  accom- 
plished than  to  drive  the  evil  to  cover,  where  it  flour- 
ishes more  abundantly  and  under  more  dreadful 
conditions  than  ever  before.  And  in  the  few  isolated 
cases  where  the  enforcement  of  the  law  is  success- 
fully accomplished,  the  only  result  is  to  scatter  the 
evil  into  new  places,  whither  the  law  and  its 
minions  cannot  follow.  Thus  do  saloons  ring  the 
border  of  a  no-license  town;  thus  does  such  a  sup- 
pression of  gambling  as  was  achieved  by  Gov.  Hughes 
drive  the  gamblers  into  burglary,  highway  robbery, 
white-slave  trafficking,  and  other  more  terrible  forms 
of  crime;  thus  does  the  closing  of  a  house  of  prosti- 
tution drive  the  inmates  into  tenements,  lodging-houses, 
and  apartments.  Mr.  Whitlock  tells  a  wonderful  story 
in  this  connection  of  Golden  Rule  Jones,  of  Toledo. 
Once  during  the  mayoralty  of  this  remarkable  man, 
he  was  visited  by  a  committee  of  ladies  and  gentlemen, 
with  the  demand  that  he  obliterate  the  social  evil,  off- 
hand and  instantly.  These  reformers  were  simple, 
brief,  and  to  the  point.  The  laws  were  being  broken, 
and  it  was  his  duty  to  enforce  them. 

"  But  what  am  I  to  do  with  the  women  ?  "  inquired 
Mayor  Jones. 

"  Have  the  police  drive  them  out  of  town,"  was  the 
triumphant  reply. 


218  RELIGION  FOR  TO-DAY 

"But  where  shall  I  have  the  police  drive  them?" 
persisted  the  Mayor.  "  Over  to  Detroit,  or  Cleveland, 
or  merely  out  into  the  country?  They  have  got  to  go 
somewhere,  you  know." 

This  was  a  detail  of  the  business  which  had  escaped 
this  delegation  of  citizens,  and  there  was  silence. 

"  I'll  make  you  a  proposition,"  continued  Golden 
Rule  Jones,  true  as  always  to  his  name.  "  You  go 
and  select  two  of  the  worst  of  the  women,  and  I'll 
agree  to  take  them  into  my  home  and  provide  for 
them  until  they  can  find  some  other  way  of  making 
a  living.  And  then  each  one  of  you  take  one  girl  into 
your  home,  under  the  same  conditions.  And  then  to- 
gether we'll  try  to  find  homes  for  the  rest." 

The  men  and  women  in  the  delegation  looked  at 
him,  says  Mr.  Whitlock,  then  looked  at  each  other,  and 
seeing  how  utterly  hopeless  it  was  to  deal  with  so 
strange  a  man,  they  went  away! 

Now  right  here,  in  this  episode,  do  we  have  the 
whole  issue,  as  it  is  seen  at  least  by  the  man  who 
believes  that  you  cannot  make  people  good  by  law. 
After  you  have  passed  all  your  legislation  against 
your  evils,  and  then  enforced  the  legislation  to  the 
limit,  there  still  remain  to  be  considered  the  persons 
who  were  engaged  in  these  evils.  The  law  has  done 
nothing  whatsoever  to  change  the  character  of  these 
persons,  and  make  them  better.  It  has  simply 
driven  them  from  their  familiar  haunts,  like  the  beetles 
from  a  lifted  stone;  it  has  broken  up  their  business 
and  their  pleasure;  and  it  has  cast  them  out  upon 


LEGISLATION  AND  MORALS  219 

the  world,  to  pursue  their  evil  practices  in  other 
places  and  in  other  ways.  They  are  the  same  kind  of 
persons,  laws  or  no  laws,  enforcement  or  no  enforce- 
ment; and  they  are  going  to  continue  to  be  the  same 
kind  of  persons,  and  live  the  same  kind  of  lives, 
without  the  law,  or  with  the  connivance  of  the  law,  or 
in  defiance  of  the  law.  Not  one  law  which  has  ever 
been  passed  in  any  age,  and  not  one  officer  who  has 
ever  been  appointed  to  enforce  this  law,  has  ever  made 
an  evil  person  good.  It  has  simply  neglected  this 
person,  or  outlawed  him,  or  harried  him,  or  persecuted 
him,  or  destroyed  him  —  and  all  for  the  sake,  as  Mayor 
Gaynor  used  to  put  it,  of  "  outward  decency  and 
order."  A  more  ineffectual  policy,  or,  still  worse,  a 
more  cruel  policy,  cannot  be  imagined.  In  every 
case  of  this  kind,  after  all,  it  should  be  the  people  that 
should  interest  us,  and  not  the  conditions  surrounding 
these  people  or  produced  by  these  people.  And  if 
these  people  are  ever  to  be  saved,  as  well  as  the  con- 
ditions changed,  we  must  have  resort  to  something 
else  besides  law  and  its  enforcement.  Somehow  or 
other,  the  farther  one  penetrates  into  this  problem 
of  morality,  the  nearer  we  seem  to  come  to  the  human 
soul  as  the  kernel  and  core  of  the  whole  business; 
and  the  more  we  listen  for  the  right  word  of  counsel, 
the  more  clearly  we  begin  to  hear  the  far-off  whis- 
per of  the  voice  of  God.  Is  not  such  a  man  as  Dr. 
Richard  C.  Cabot  right,  after  all,  when  he  says  of 
prostitution  that  it  "  can  be  attacked  only  in  the 
individual  soul,  and  by  the  individual  soul  over- 


£20  RELIGION  FOR  TO-DAY 

mastered  by  God"?  And  is  not  this  same  direct, 
and  personal,  and  divine  remedy  the  final  cure,  not 
only  of  prostitution,  but  of  every  spiritual  ill  to  which 
human  flesh  is  heir? 

There  can  be  few  persons  who  will  not  see,  just  as 
I  see,  the  cogency  of  this  argument,  and  be  inclined 
therefore  to  accept  the  conclusion  that  people  cannot 
be  made  good  by  law,  after  all,  and  that  all  our  enthusi- 
asm to-day  for  new  and  better  legislation  is  a  kind 
of  frenzied  madness.  What  answer  is  there,  for  in- 
stance, to  Brand  Whitlock's  simple  historical  state- 
ment that  the  policy  of  hostile  legislation  has  had  an 
unbroken  record  of  failure  from  Solon's  day  to  our 
own?  What  could  be  plainer  than  the  psychology  of 
the  principle  that  morality  pertains  to  the  inner  life 
of  the  soul  and  not  to  the  outer  life  of  the  social  order, 
and  that  we  must  overcome  evil  with  good,  therefore, 
by  spiritual  and  not  by  social  processes!  And  then, 
too,  even  if  these  two  facts  were  not  quite  as  obvious 
as  they  actually  seem  to  be,  must  not  our  hearts  be 
touched  by  the  cruelty  which  is  involved  in  the  policy 
of  passing  a  law  against  a  certain  evil,  and  then  using 
this  law  as  a  club  to  beat  out  the  brains  of  a  practi- 
tioner of  this  evil?  Could  anything  be  farther  from 
the  spirit  of  Christianity,  which  finds  its  true  expres- 
sion not  in  the  old  law,  an  eye  for  an  eye  and  a  tooth 
for  a  tooth,  but  in  the  new  dispensation,  "  Neither 
do  I  condemn  thee;  go,  and  sin  no  more"?  Is  not 
Brand  Whitlock  right  when  he  says  of  prostitution  — 
and  practically  of  every  other  evil  —  "  If  the  world  is 


LEGISLATION  AND  MORALS 

ever  to  solve  this  problem,  it  must  ...  do  away 
with  its  old  laws,  its  old  cruelties,  its  old  brutalities, 
its  old  stupidities,  and  approach  the  problem  in  that 
human  spirit  which  I  suspect  is  so  very  near  the  divine. 
Once  in  this  spirit,  society  will  be  in  a  position  to  learn 
something  from  history  and  from  human  experience, 
and  what  it  will  learn  first  is  that  puritanical  laws,  the 
hounding  of  the  police,  and  all  that  sort  of  thing  .  .  . 
have  never  lessened  prostitution,  but  on  the  contrary 
have  increased  it.  ...  Why  is  it  constantly  necessary 
to  do  something  to  people?  If  we  cannot  do  anything 
for  them,  when  are  we  going  to  learn  to  let  them 
alone?" 

Now  all  this  sounds  very  convincing,  to  say  the 
least.  And  yet  I  must  confess  that  there  is  one  very 
quiet  assumption  involved  in  all  this  argument  against 
the  efficacy  of  legislation  as  a  moral  agent,  which  makes 
me  hesitate  to  accept  the  conclusion  which  is  offered. 
I  refer  to  the  fact  that,  in  all  that  is  said  by  Brand 
Whitlock  and  persons  of  his  way  of  thinking  upon 
this  question,  it  is  assumed  that  the  men  and  women 
who  are  involved  in  these  various  evils,  of  which  we 
have  been  speaking,  are  bad  in  character  and  need 
therefore,  by  some  process  of  reformation,  to  be  made 
good.  The  very  way  in  which  these  persons  force 
their  opinion  upon  us,  by  asserting  that  "  you  cannot 
make  people  good  by  law,"  shows  that  they  believe  that 
there  are  certain  people  in  the  world  who  must  be 
made  good,  because  they  are  now  bad,  and  that  the 
repressive  legislation  which  has  been  enacted  and  en- 


RELIGION  FOR  TO-DAY 

forced  in  all  the  ages  of  the  past  is  the  method  which 
has  been  followed  for  effecting  this  great  end. 

Now  as  a  matter  of  fact,  if  there  is  any  one  thing 
which  is  becoming  increasingly  apparent  in  this  great 
age  of  ours,  it  is  this  —  that,  with  very  few  exceptions, 
there  are  no  people  in  the  world  who  can  be  set  down 
and  classified  from  the  very  start  as  bad.  For  thou- 
sands of  years,  of  course,  we  have  been  told  by  the 
Christian  church  that  everybody  was  conceived  in  sin 
and  born  in  iniquity,  and  that  the  whole  problem  of 
life  was  that  of  saving  souls  which  were  doomed  to  be 
lost ;  and  every  field  of  thought  has  inevitably  been 
more  or  less  influenced  by  this  theological  point  of 
view.  We  have  had  endless  talk  about  incorrigible 
children,  and  bad  women,  and  criminal  types ;  and 
we  still  hear  these  human  figures  referred  to  in  our 
time  as  though  they  were  actual  realities  and  not  pure 
figments  of  the  imagination,  or  nightmares  of  an  igno- 
rant theology.  But  to-day,  wherever  the  best  thought 
of  our  time  has  extended  its  influence,  this  idea  that 
there  are  any  such  realities  as  good  people  and  bad 
people  has  wholly  disappeared,  and  we  find  it  safest, 
as  well  as  most  charitable,  to  talk  about  brothers,  or 
comrades,  or  children  of  God  —  or  just  simply  peo- 
ple, without  any  descriptive  adjectives  whatsoever. 

Take,  for  example,  this  very  matter  of  prostitution, 
about  which  we  have  just  been  speaking.  What  is  more 
remarkable,  in  the  findings  of  these  very  vice  com- 
missions, about  which  Brand  Whitlock  speaks  so 
slightingly  in  his  article  above  referred  to,  than  the 


LEGISLATION  AND  MORALS 

discovery  that  the  women  who  make  a  living  by  selling 
their  bodies,  are  not  bad  women  at  all,  as  they  have 
been  erroneously  described  for  so  many  generations, 
but  just  women,  with  the  ordinary  passions  and 
desires  and  weaknesses  and  problems  of  ordinary 
women.  At  the  great  Brussels  Conference  for  the 
Prophylaxis  of  Syphilis  and  Venereal  Diseases,  held 
in  1899,  it  was  repeatedly  stated  that  the  number  of 
women  who  went  into  prostitution  willingly,  and  re- 
mained in  it  when  they  had  a  chance  to  escape,  was 
astonishingly  small.  The  Chicago  Vice  Commission 
found  many  girls  who  were  physically  abnormal  or 
mentally  subnormal,  and  a  few  who  described  them- 
selves as  "  born  bad "  or  "  actually  immoral,"  but  it 
testified  that  the  great  majority  of  girls  "were  vic- 
tims of  conditions  and  circumstances  for  which  they 
were  less  responsible  than  their  families,  their  employ- 
ers, or  the  community."  And  this  conclusion  is  ex- 
actly in  accordance  with  the  findings  of  Miss  Maude 
Miner,  who  is  doing  such  remarkable  work  with  way- 
ward girls  in  New  York  at  Waverly  House.  "  The 
large  number  of  these  girls,"  she  says,  in  the 
Second  Annual  Report  of  her  institution,  "  are  not 
guilty  of  moral  obliquity  because  they  are  actually 
bad,  vicious,  or  depraved.  In  my  work  with  girls 
during  the  last  five  years,  I  can  truthfully  say  that 
I  have  seen  very  few  who  could  be  so  classed.  Many 
have  drifted  into  the  life  through  weakness  of  will  or 
through  domination  by  a  stronger  will.  With  the 
larger  number  there  seems  little  room  for  reasonable 


RELIGION  FOR  TO-DAY 

doubt  that  their  wrongdoing  has  been  due  to  the  condi- 
tions under  which  they  live  and  work  and  play." 

Another  illustration  of  this  same  fact  comes  to  us 
from  the  field  of  juvenile  delinquency.  In  the  past  it 
has  been  almost  universally  assumed  that  children,  or 
the  great  majority  of  them  at  least,  are  naturally 
depraved.  I  know  of  nothing  more  terrible  in  all  the 
history  of  humanity  than  the  suffering  which  has  been 
deliberately  and  even  conscientiously  visited  upon 
little  boys  and  little  girls  under  the  mistaken  notion 
that  they  were  bad,  and  that  their  badness  must  be 
whipped  or  starved  or  frightened  out  of  them.  Think 
of  the  little  bodies  that  have  been  bruised,  the  little 
minds  that  have  been  terrorised,  the  little  hearts 
that  have  been  wounded  and  brutalised  and  broken, 
all  because  we  have  thought  these  youngsters  were 
vicious.  Now,  however,  thank  God,  all  this  super- 
stition is  passing  away.  We  know  to-day  that 
children  are  just  children,  that  is  all,  and  that  there  is 
not  so  much  as  a  single  naturally  evil  propensity  in 
any  one  of  them,  who  is  normally  born.  What  men 
have  interpreted  as  incorrigibility  is  only  ignorance, 
curiosity,  physical  exuberance,  animal  spirits.  "  Boys 
as  such  are  never  bad,"  says  the  well-known  super- 
intendent of  the  Parental  Republic  in  California. 
"  I  have  learned,"  he  continues,  "  that  the  boys  who 
are  called  bad  are  simply  the  victims  of  circumstance 
and  environment."  Judge  Lindsej-,  of  Denver,  Colo- 
rado, bears  constant  witness  to  the  same  fact,  and  has 
proved  his  faith  in  the  case  of  hundreds  of  juvenile 


LEGISLATION  AND  MORALS  225 

delinquents  who  have  come  before  him  for  trial  in  the 
Denver  Court.  And  we  all  know,  of  course,  of  the 
remarkable  work  of  Dr.  Barnado,  who  organised  his 
famous  system  for  taking  the  boy  criminals  out  of 
the  slums  of  the  great  cities  of  England,  and  sending 
them  to  farms  in  Australia,  South  Africa,  and  Canada. 
Nearly  50,000  apparently  hopeless  boys,  morally 
speaking,  have  been  disposed  of  in  this  way,  and  in 
their  new  surroundings  less  than  two  per  cent,  have 
shown  any  tendency  to  revert  to  their  earlier  criminal 
practices. 

And  this  same  discovery,  let  me  say,  is  just  now 
being  made  also  in  the  real  field  of  criminology.  For 
centuries,  the  mature  criminal,  like  the  bad  woman, 
or  the  incorrigible  child,  was  regarded  as  wilfully 
depraved,  and  as  a  result  was  treated  with  indescrib- 
able cruelty.  In  the  nineteenth  century  came  Lom- 
broso,  with  his  theory  of  "  the  criminal  type,"  which 
threw  the  responsibility  back  from  the  individual  to 
his  family.  To-day,  however,  we  are  rapidly  abandon- 
ing this  new  idea  of  inheritance,  along  with  the  old 
idea  of  moral  depravity,  as  a  general  explanation  of 
criminality,  and  are  coming  to  regard  the  criminal 
as  the  victim  not  so  much  of  heredity  as  of  environ- 
ment. There  are  plenty  of  criminals,  of  course,  who 
are  physically  and  mentally  defective,  just  as  there 
is  a  sprinkling  jof  criminals  in  every  prison  who  are 
out-and-out  moral  perverts.  But  the  average  crim- 
inal is  a  perfectly  normal  man,  whose  fate  is  wholly 
to  be  explained  by  the  fact  that  he  has  never  had 


RELIGION  FOR  TO-DAY 

a  chance,  or  has  been  led  astray  by  degrading  and 
corruptive  influences.  Take,  for  example,  the  typical 
case  cited  by  Prof.  Scott  Nearing  in  his  valuable  little 
book  on  The  Super  Race.  Here  is  a  so-called  criminal 
in  court,  to  answer  to  the  charge  of  entering  a  lodging- 
house  and  stealing  three  pairs  of  trousers  and  a  coat. 
On  examining  his  record,  it  is  found  that  last  year  he 
attempted  to  steal  an  automobile,  and  before  this  had 
served  a  two  years'  sentence  for  grand  larceny.  A 
thoroughly  bad  man,  we  say !  But  hold  on  a  minute  — 
let  us  see  what  is  the  story  of  this  man's  life!  On 
making  an  investigation,  it  is  discovered  that  he  was 
born  in  a  wretched  slum,  and  into  a  vile  room  up  three 
flights  of  dirty  stairs  in  the  rear  of  a  tenement.  His 
father,  a  dock  labourer,  earned  about  $300  a  year  on 
an  average.  Oftentimes,  in  periods  of  unusual  stress 
or  occasional  idleness,  money  would  run  out,  the  gro- 
cer would  refuse  credit,  and  the  family  would  go 
hungry.  It  was  during  one  of  these  periods  of  semi- 
starvation  that  this  criminal,  then  an  urchin  nine 
years  old,  stole  a  banana  from  a  freight  car,  and  was 
sent  to  jail.  He  was  confined  with  older  criminals, 
and  speedily  taught  the  art  of  pocket-picking  and 
shop-lifting.  Released  at  the  end  of  two  months,  and 
having  nothing  to  do  and  no  place  to  go,  he  instinc- 
tively tried  the  tricks  which  he  had  learned  as  the 
easiest  means  of  keeping  body  and  soul  together. 
Soon  detected  stealing  a  pocket-handkerchief,  he  was 
returned  to  prison,  and  there  took  his  post-graduate 
course  in  the  ways  and  means  of  professional  crime. 


LEGISLATION  AND  MORALS  227 

What  wonder  that  he  is  now  here  in  the  dock,  con- 
fessing to  the  latest  of  the  long  series  of  his  crimes, 
and  awaiting  calmly  the  latest  of  his  punishments! 

Now  .right  here,  in  such  examples  as  these,  which 
are  fast  becoming  the  commonplaces  of  our  time  in  the 
fields  of  sociology  and  penology,  do  we  have  convinc- 
ing illustration  of  the  fact,  which  I  would  impress  upon 
your  minds  at  this  point,  that  there  are  no  people 
who  are  wholly  bad  and  who  need  therefore  to  be 
made  good  by  law,  or  religious  education,  or  personal 
influence,  or  any  other  system  of  reformation.  Elimi- 
nating that  small  minority  of  persons,  born  in  every 
generation  and  in  all  walks  of  society,  who  are  phy- 
sically abnormal,  or  mentally  defective,  or  morally 
degenerate,  we  can  say  of  people  generally  that  they 
represent  nothing  more  nor  less  than  a  mixture  of 
good  and  bad  impulses.  In  every  one  of  us  there  is 
the  downward  tendency  toward  the  life  of  physical 
indulgence,  selfish  ambition,  personal  aggrandisement 
and  power;  and  in  every  one  of  us  also  there  is 
the  upward  tendency  toward  the  life  of  devotion, 
self-sacrifice,  love  —  all  that  we  know,  in  short,  as 
moral  and  spiritual  idealism.  There  is  no  one  of  us  so 
good  but  what  he  has  his  inward  struggles  against 
selfishness,  deceit,  and  lust.  There  is  no  one  of  us 
so  bad  but  what  he  has  his  moments  of  noble  striving 
for  the  true,  the  beautiful,  and  the  good.  The  best 
of  us  embody  the  inherent  possibilities  of  all  that  is  in 
the  worst;  and  the  worst  of  us  contain  the  inherent 
possibilities  as  well  of  all  that  is  in  the  best.  St. 


228  RELIGION  FOR  TO-DAY 

Paul  never  wrote  a  truer  word  than  when  he  depicted, 
in  his  letter  to  the  Romans,  the  awful  struggle  that 
is  going  on  in  every  one  of  us  all  the  time  between  what 
he  called  the  flesh  and  the  spirit. 

Now  it  is  people  of  this  kind,  who  are  both  good 
and  bad,  and  not  people  who  are  wholly  the  one 
thing  or  the  other,  who  are  being  born  into  this  world 
of  ours.  Some  of  these  people  are  born  into  an 
environment  of  such  a  character  that,  from  the  very 
earliest  years  on,  they  find  every  good  impulse  of  their 
natures  fostered  and  encouraged,  and  every  bad 
impulse  withered  and  repressed.  Their  homes  are 
full  of  sunshine  and  fresh  air,  abundantly  provided 
with  food  and  clothing  and  similar  necessities  of  life, 
and  radiant  in  every  nook  and  corner  with  the  bright 
influences  of  affection,  beauty,  and  quiet  leisure.  The 
streets  upon  which  they  walk  are  clean ;  the  schools 
which  they  attend  are  uncrowded;  the  neighbourhoods 
which  they  frequent  and  the  companions  with  whom 
they  associate  are  far  removed  from  every  factor  of 
social  life  which  is  ugly,  sordid,  and  debasing.  As  they 
grow  to  early  youth,  they  are  introduced  to  art,  litera- 
ture, and  music;  they  are  sent  to  colleges  and  uni- 
versities; and  when  at  last  they  reach  manhood  or 
womanhood,  they  venture  forth  upon  life's  highway 
fully  armed  and  equipped  for  the  great  adventure 
which  lies  ahead.  It  is  seldom  that  we  find  children, 
reared  under  such  social  conditions  as  these,  before  the 
bars  of  our  juvenile  courts;  seldom  that  we  find  girls 
who  have  thus  been  sheltered  and  nourished,  walking 


LEGISLATION  AND  MORALS  229 

upon  our  city  streets  in  quest  of  business ;  seldom  that 
we  find  boys  who  have  thus  been  trained  and  equipped 
entering  voluntarily  upon  a  career  of  crime.  And 
the  explanation  is  easy!  It  is  not  that  these  persons 
are  any  better  morally  than  other  people  —  they  are 
normal,  that  is  all!  It  is  simply  that,  like  flowers 
planted  in  fertile  soil  and  bathed  in  sunshine  and 
fresh  air,  they  have  known  an  environment  which  has 
fostered  all  the  good  that  there  was  in  them,  and 
blighted  all  the  bad.  It  is  natural  to  be  good  under 
such  conditions  —  so  natural,  that  when  some  unfor- 
tunate goes  wrong,  we  find  ourselves  inevitably  talking 
about  "  bad  eggs  "  and  "  black  sheep." 

But  how  is  it  with  the  people  who  are  born  amid 
other  circumstances  —  those  hordes  of  men  and  women 
in  city  slum  and  rural  cottage  who  constitute  the 
great  majority  of  humanity?  These  people,  like  these 
others  of  whom  I  have  just  been  speaking,  find  within 
themselves  the  same  natural  mixture  of  good  and  bad. 
But  instead  of  being  helped  by  the  social  conditions 
into  which  they  are  born,  and  amid  which  they  live 
and  work  from  day  to  day,  they  find,  on  the  contrary, 
that  every  influence  is  dead  against  them.  Some 
there  are  among  these  denizens  of  earth  who  are 
born  with  indomitable  and  unconquerable  wills,  and 
these  succeed  in  winning  out  even  against  the  most 
terrific  odds.  And  the  world  immediately  does  the 
grossly  inhuman  thing  of  citing  these  exceptional 
moral  geniuses  as  proof  that  everybody  can  win  out 
in  the  economic  and  spiritual  struggle,  if  they  really 


230  RELIGION  FOR  TO-DAY 

want  to  —  as  though  everybody  could  be  a  Shake- 
speare, or  a  Napoleon,  or  a  Lincoln,  by  simply  trying 
good  and  hard!  The  fact  of  the  matter  is  that  the 
great  majority  of  men  and  women  are  simply  average, 
that  is  all,  and  when  they  find  themselves  living  in 
an  economic  and  social  environment  which  is  ugly, 
unhealthy,  and  degrading,  they  go  to  pieces  —  first 
physically,  and  then  slowly  but  surely  morally!  Do 
you  wonder  that  the  juvenile  delinquents  of  Man- 
hattan, with  very  few  exceptions,  are  all  produced 
by  three  specific  neighbourhoods  of  the  city,  small  in 
area,  but  unspeakably  congested  in  population?  Do 
you  wonder  that  Miss  Miner  points  out,  as  the  most 
significant  thing  in  the  whole  problem  of  prostitution, 
that  "  nearly  all  the  girls  "  who  go  wrong  are  girls 
who  have  had  to  earn  their  living,  ill-prepared  and 
under  unfavourable  conditions?  Do  you  wonder  that 
the  great  majority  of  criminals  are  men  who  come 
from  certain  very  definite  strata  of  what  we  know 
as  the  lower  classes  of  the  population?  Born  into 
crowded  homes  which  give  no  access  to  fresh  air  and 
sunlight,  and  which  are  filled  with  dirt,  disease,  and 
decay  of  every  kind;  denied  clean  and  nourishing 
and  adequate  food;  neglected  and  abused  by  parents 
who  are  worn  out  by  exhausting  and  ill-paid  toil; 
playing  in  dark  tenements  and  dirty  gutters  and  never 
in  green  pastures  and  by  still  waters ;  put  to  work  in 
sweatshop  or  factory  or  store  at  the  very  age  when 
freedom  and  joy  are  the  natural  accompaniments 


LEGISLATION  AND  MORALS  231 

of  existence;  living  in  small  rooms  crowded  with 
boarders  as  well  as  members  of  the  family,  where  all 
personal  privacy  and  all  standards  of  ordinary 
decency  are  absolutely  precluded;  overwhelmed,  in 
short,  from  the  very  hour  of  birth,  by  all  the  condi- 
tions which  grinding  poverty  makes  inevitable  in  a 
great  city  to-day  —  what  wonder  that  they  go  wrong 
sooner  or  later?  What  wonder  that  bad  impulses 
grow,  and  good  impulses  wither  and  disappear? 
What  wonder  that  the  girls  find  it  easy  to  become 
prostitutes,  and  the  boys  find  it  easy  to  become 
criminals?  Why,  when  I  consider  the  way  the  ma- 
jority of  people  in  this  world  have  to  live,  when  I 
consider  the  ceaseless  struggle  which  they  have  to 
make  for  bread,  when  I  consider  the  things  of  beauty 
and  joy  and  love  which  they  are  denied  from  year's 
end  to  year's  end,  when  I  consider  the  degrading 
influences  of  physical  depression,  mental  darkness,  and 
spiritual  atrophy  which  assail  them  every  moment  of 
every  day  —  my  wonder  is  not  that  so  many  of  them 
give  way  morally,  but,  on  the  contrary,  that  so  many, 
in  spite  of  every  adverse  condition,  actually  succeed 
in  living  pure,  honest,  upright,  righteous  lives.  Do 
you  ask  me  if  I  believe  in  the  divinity  of  human 
nature?  I  answer,  yes!  And  if  you  want  to  know 
the  grounds  for  my  belief,  I  point  you  first  of  all  not 
to  the  classic  achievements  of  the  martyrs  and  the 
saints  and  the  heroes  of  ancient  days,  but  to  the 
martyrs  and  the  saints  and  the  heroes  of  our  own  day, 


RELIGION  FOR  TO-DAY 

who  are  facing  the  indescribable  horrors  of  economic 
dependence,  and  still,  in  spite  of  all,  are  keeping 
sweet,  brave,  and  true! 

Now  right  here,  in  such  facts  as  these,  perhaps,  do 
we  begin  to  come  in  sight  at  least  of  an  answer  to 
our  question  about  "  Legislation  and  Morals,"  which  is 
very  different  from  the  one  offered  in  the  early  part  of 
this  discourse  —  an  answer,  indeed,  which  is  as  differ- 
ent as  the  question  itself  is  now  seen  to  be  different. 
There  is  no  out-and-out  problem  here  of  taking  a  bad 
man  and  making  him  good.  If  that  has  got  to  be  done, 
a  surgical  operation,  a  stay  in  a  sanatorium,  a  visit  to 
a  revival  service,  a  course  in  moral  education,  a  gift 
of  personal  friendship,  any  one  of  these  things  may  be 
efficacious,  according  to  the  circumstances  of  each 
particular  case,  but  certainly  not  a  new  act  of  legis- 
lation. But  the  real  question,  I  repeat,  is  not  that  of 
making  bad  people  good,  but  of  taking  ordinary, 
everyday  people,  who  are  simply  an  average  mixture 
of  good  and  bad  desires,  and  giving  them  a  decent 
chance  to  do  the  right  thing.  Here  are  conditions 
all  about  us,  in  this  social  life  of  ours,  which  are 
certain  on  the  one  hand  to  weaken  moral  fibre  and 
wither  spiritual  desires,  and  on  the  other  hand,  to 
tempt  every  frailty  and  foster  every  evil  impulse. 
To  stand  up  straight  under  such  conditions  is  difficult 
and  not  easy  —  to  stumble  and  fall  under  such  condi- 
tions is  easy  and  not  difficult.  If  these  depressing  and 
corrupting  conditions  were  ineradicable,  if  they  could 
not  be  improved  in  any  way,  if  they  were  rooted  deep 


LEGISLATION  AND  MORALS  233 

in  the  unchanging  order  of  things,  we  might  try  as 
best  we  could  to  reconcile  ourselves  to  the  inevitable. 
But  these  conditions  are  not  ineradicable  —  they  are 
not  beyond  the  possibilty  and  practicability  of  radical 
improvement!  They  can  be  changed,  and  changed 
not  by  relying  upon  the  good-will  of  individuals,  who 
in  the  great  majority  of  cases  are  helpless  to  do  any- 
thing as  individuals,  but  by  relying  upon  the  due 
processes  of  law,  which  represent  not  only  the  good- 
will but  the  power  of  the  community  as  a  whole. 

It  is  impossible  for  us,  as  single  members  of  a  com- 
munity, to  wipe  out  slums  and  destroy  tenements  — 
to  secure  parks  and  playgrounds  and  recreation  centres 
—  to  improve  factory  conditions  and  abolish  the  labour 
of  little  children  —  to  lower  the  hours  of  toil  and  raise 
the  wages  of  all  workers,  men  and  women  alike  —  to 
guarantee  to  every  living  soul  an  equal  economic  op- 
portunity, and  a  fair  and  even  chance  therefore  in 
the  struggle  for  existence  —  to  establish  and  maintain 
such  a  social  system  that  no  one  person  shall  be  handi- 
capped, or  morally  tempted,  and  no  person  also  unduly 
protected  and  favoured.  It  is  impossible  for  me  to  do 
any  one  of  these  things  alone,  just  as  it  is  impossible 
for  you  to  do  any  one  of  these  things  alone.  But  it  is 
not  impossible  for  you  and  me  together  to  do  these 
things.  And  the  only  effective  way  for  us  to  proceed, 
in  a  government  of  law,  is  to  see  to  it  that  the  law 
is  expressive  of  our  will  in  this  particular,  as  it  is, 
or  should  be,  in  all  others.  And  it  is  when  we  do  this 
very  thing  —  abolish  social  conditions  which  destroy 


RELIGION  FOR  TO-DAY 

life  and  corrupt  morals,  by  passing  and  enforcing 
tenement  house  laws,  and  health  laws,  and  labour 
laws,  and  factory  laws,  and  pure  food  laws,  and 
minimum  wage  laws,  and  all  the  rest  —  it  is  then  I 
venture  to  assert  that  we  are  going  a  long  ways  in  the 
direction  of  making  people  good,  or  at  least  of  pre- 
venting them  from  being  bad,  by  law. 

It  is  true,  of  course,  that  we  cannot  legislate  mor- 
ality, but  what  we  can  do  is  legislate  conditions  that 
foster  morality.  We  cannot  enact  virtue  by  passing 
laws,  but  we  can  enact  conditions  which  make  virtue 
an  infinitely  easier  and  more  natural  thing  than  vice. 
We  cannot  prevent  men  from  yielding  to  temptation 
by  legislative  action,  but  we  can  remove  all  unnecessary 
temptations  from  them.  We  cannot  by  any  law  or 
code  or  sign,  by  any  legislative  measure,  executive 
proclamation,  or  judicial  decision,  redeem  a  single  lost 
soul,  but  we  can  by  one  and  all  of  these  processes 
prevent  that  soul  from  becoming  lost  in  the  beginning. 
Nothing  that  we  can  do,  through  the  machinery  of 
government,  can  prevent  a  woman  from  becoming  a 
prostitute  if  she  really  prefers  that  life,  or  a  man  from 
becoming  a  criminal,  if  he  really  desires  to  follow 
that  career.  But  much  that  we  can  do,  through  the 
machinery  of  government,  will  make  that  deliberate 
choice  of  evil  as  remote  and  hideous  and  indeed  un- 
thinkable a  thing  as  it  is  at  this  very  moment  in 
the  case  of  the  boys  and  girls  in  your  families  and 
mine.  Human  nature  is  easily  influenced  by  its  social 
environment  either  upward  or  downward.  If  our  leg- 


LEGISLATION  AND  MORALS  235 

islation  is  wise  and  its  enforcement  rigid,  we  can  create 
an  environment  which  shall  influence  human  nature 
always  toward  the  good  and  never  towards  the  evil. 
And  just  to  the  extent  that  this  is  done,  I  venture 
to  assert  that  it  is  accurate  to  say  that  we  are  making 
people  good  by  law ! 

Here,  now,  is  a  very  different  answer  to  our  ques- 
tion from  that  offered  by  Mr.  Brand  Whitlock  and 
those  who  think  as  he  does.  And  yet  I  wonder,  after 
all,  as  I  have  already  intimated,  whether  it  is  the 
answers  which  are  different,  or  the  questions  which 
the  two  sides  have  been  considering.  In  all  that  Mr. 
Whitlock  has  said  about  the  folly  and  impossibility  of 
trying  to  make  people  good  by  law,  he  has  had  in 
mind  the  police  laws  which  are  aimed  at  punishing 
people  after  they  have  committed  their  offences  —  and 
I  suppose  that  there  is  no  one  of  us  who  would  not 
agree  with  what  he  has  said  about  laws  of  this  char- 
acter. But  in  all  that  we  have  been  saying  about  the 
wisdom  and  possibility  of  trying  to  make  people  good 
by  law,  we  have  had  in  mind  the  social  laws  which 
are  aimed  at  eradicating  the  conditions  which  induce 
people  to  commit  offences  in  the  beginning.  Mr. 
Whitlock  and  his  associates  have  had  in  mind  the 
laws  which  punish  the  sinner,  which  are  as  old  as 
time  and  have  an  unbroken  record  of  failure.  We 
have  had  in  mind  the  laws  which  prevent  the  sin  by 
removing  the  occasion  for  the  sin,  which  are  as  new  as 
the  new  era  in  which  we  are  living,  and,  if  the  new 
penology  and  sociology  are  proving  anything,  are  fast 


236  RELIGION  FOR  TO-DAY 

demonstrating  their  success.  We  have  been  talking 
therefore  about  very  different  things,  and  I  doubt, 
after  all,  if  we  are  so  very  far  apart.  I  quoted  Mr. 
Whitlock,  a  few  moments  ago,  as  saying,  you  will 
remember,  Why  is  it  constantly  necessary  to  do  some- 
thing to  people?  Why  cannot  we  do  something  for 
them?  And  what  is  this,  I  ask  you,  but  the  very 
policy  for  which  I  am  pleading?  The  one  way  to  do 
something  for  people  —  to  help  them  to  be  brave  and 
strong  and  clean  —  is  to  give  them  a  fair  and  honest 
chance.  This  is  what  we  can  do,  and  are  doing,  by 
our  social  legislation.  And  this  it  is  which  I  have 
in  mind  when  I  say  that  it  is  possible,  indeed  neces- 
sary, to  make  people  good  by  law ! 

And  it  is  this  very  discovery  that  legislation  has 
much  to  do  with  morals,  which  very  largely  explains,  I 
imagine,  the  social  enthusiasm  and  social  consecration 
of  our  time.  Our  social  reformers  are  not  putting  all 
these  laws  upon  the  statute  books,  because  they  have 
nothing  better  to  do.  They  are  not  studying  condi- 
tions and  formulating  legislation  to  meet  these  con- 
ditions, for  the  fun  of  it.  On  the  contrary,  they  are 
giving  their  lives  to  this  great  work  of  lawmaking 
because  they  see  that  this  is  the  road  which  leads 
straightest  and  surest  to  the  Kingdom  of  God  on 
earth.  A  great  faith  has  in  our  time  taken  possession 
of  humanity  —  namely,  that  men  can  be,  want  to  be, 
and  will  be,  good,  if  only  they  have  a  chance.  A 
great  determination  has  in  our  time  taken  possession 
of  humanity  —  namely,  that  men  shall  have  a  chance  to 


LEGISLATION  AND  MORALS  237 

be  as  good  as  they  can  be  and  want  to  be.  The  social 
legislation  of  our  time  is  at  once  the  evidence  of  this 
faith  and  the  measure  of  this  determination. 


THE  CRIME  OF  CASTE,  OR  BARRIERS 
TO  BROTHERHOOD 

I  HAVE  more  than  once  in  my  preaching  laid  it 
down  as  a  fundamental  proposition  that  the  whole 
problem  of  human  existence  is  none  other  than  that 
of  finding  a  way  of  living  together  in  peace  and  happi- 
ness in  a  common  world.  There  is  nothing  particu- 
larly original  or  new  about  this  idea.  Jesus  certainly 
had  it  very  distinctly  in  mind  when  he  spoke  of  God 
as  a  father,  of  men  and  women  generally  as  the  chil- 
dren of  God's  spirit,  and  of  society  as  one  family  in 
God.  But  it  is  a  doctrine  well-worth  emphasising 
now  and  then,  all  the  same.  Here  we  are  the  inhabi- 
tants of  one  little  planet,  moving  on  its  way  through 
the  spaces  of  the  heavens  like  a  ship  upon  its  voyage 
across  the  seas.  No  one  of  us  can  leave  this  planet 
without  perishing,  any  more  than  a  passenger  can 
leave  a  vessel  in  mid-ocean  without  similar  disaster. 
No  group  of  us  can  exterminate  another  group  with- 
out bringing  so  great  a  flood  of  misery  upon  the  world 
that  the  victor  is  well  nigh  as  great  a  sufferer  as  the 
vanquished.  We  deceive  and  envy  and  abhor,  we 
hate  and  declare  war  and  fight;  but  when  each  has 
done  his  worst  against  the  other  to  the  point  of  ex- 
haustion, we  meet  in  council,  and  do  at  the  end  what 
might  have  been  done  just  as  easily  in  the  beginning 
—  arrange  the  terms  under  which  we  shall  live  to- 

238 


THE  CRIME  OF  CASTE  239 

gether  beneath  one  sky  and  upon  one  earth.  Germany 
is  now  striving  its  utmost  to  "  strafe  "  England,  Eng- 
land in  turn  is  now  straining  every  nerve  to  crush 
and  destroy  Germany;  but  even  though  everything 
else  be  uncertain,  this  at  least  is  sure,  that  when  the 
war  has  been  fought  to  its  conclusion,  England  and 
Germany  will  be  found  to  be  living  in  the  same  world 
under  terms  that  have  been  mutually  agreed  upon. 
Living  together,  in  other  words,  in  some  degree  of 
brotherhood,  is  the  normal  relationship  of  human  ex- 
istence. As  one  writer  has  recently  put  it  in  the 
Hibbert  Journal,  "  Volcanoes  may  throw  up  their  tons 
of  fiery  matter,  earthquakes  make  foundations  shiver, 
tempests  turn  the  sea  into  rolling  ridges,  but  all  settles 
again.  So  war  and  the  pride  of  empire,  blood  and 
iron  and  '  the  will  to  power,'  have  their  day  of  destruc- 
tive triumph;  but  they  pass,  and  the  friendly  human 
helpfulness  rebuilds  the  ruin  they  have  wrought." 

It  would  seem  now,  in  the  face  of  such  an  un- 
doubted truism  as  this,  that  men  would  long  since 
have  worked  out  a  method  of  organisation  which  would 
enable  them  to  live  together  in  some  degree  of  peace 
and  harmony.  It  would  not  seem  over-difficult  to 
find  those  principles  of  goodwill  which  are  the  con- 
ditions of  fraternal  association.  Not  only,  however, 
has  this  not  been  done,  but  the  exact  opposite  seems  to 
have  been  more  or  less  deliberately  attempted.  De- 
spairing of  brotherhood,  men  seem  to  have  made  up 
their  minds  that  the  only  way  to  live  together,  para- 
doxical as  it  may  sound,  is  to  live  apart!  Thus  great 


240  RELIGION  FOR  TO-DAY 

systems  of  government  have  been  conceived  on  the 
basis  not  of  bringing  men  together  into  one  great 
family,  but  on  the  contrary  of  separating  them  into 
certain  carefully  defined  and  rigidly  circumscribed 
classes,  or  castes.  This  is  the  theory  of  Plato  in  his 
Republic.  The  Athenian  philosopher  had  a  perfectly 
clear  idea  of  the  meaning  and  value  of  society  —  no 
man,  he  declared,  could  realise  his  virtue  in  isolation. 
But  his  ideal  society,  like  the  "  omnis  Gallia  "  of  Julius 
Caesar,  was  divided  into  three  parts.  In  the  first 
place,  there  were  "  the  philosophers,"  as  he  called 
them,  who  constituted  the  intelligence  of  the  commu- 
nity, and  whose  duty  it  was  to  rule.  In  the  second 
place,  there  were  the  warriors,  who  constituted  the 
power  of  the  state,  and  whose  duty  it  was  to  guard. 
And  lastly,  there  were  the  merchants,  artisans,  farm- 
ers, and  slaves  —  the  lower  classes  —  whose  duty  it 
was  simply  to  serve  and  obey  the  rulers  and  guardians 
who  were  above  them.  Every  child  was  educated  by 
the  state,  and  upon  coming  to  maturity,  was  assigned 
to  that  class  for  which,  by  native  endowment,  he 
seemed  to  be  best  fitted.  Once  assigned,  there  was 
no  escape  from  one  class  to  another,  for  the  division 
into  the  three  castes,  which  I  have  named,  was  of  the 
most  uncompromising  character.  "  Any  intermeddling 
in  the  three  classes,"  said  Plato,  "  or  any  change 
from  one  class  to  another,  is  the  greatest  harm  to  the 
state,  and  may  with  perfect  propriety  be  described 
as  evil-doing."  l 
i  See  The  Republic,  Book  IV,  434. 


THE  CRIME  OF  CASTE 

But  it  is  not  only  in  books  that  such  a  division  of 
the  social  whole  as  this  is  seriously  undertaken.  In- 
dia to-day,  as  for  unnumbered  centuries  in  the  past, 
is  the  crowning  example  of  all  that  we  mean  by 
"  caste  "  as  contrasted  with  "  brotherhood."  Here  do 
we  find  society  divided  into  four  classes  instead  of 
three,  as  in  the  Utopia  of  Plato.  At  the  top  are  the 
Brahmanas  or  philosophers,  to  whom  are  "  assigned  the 
duties  of  reading  the  Vedas,  of  teaching,  of  sacrificing 
of  assisting  others  to  sacrifice,  of  giving  alms  if  they 
be  rich,  and  of  receiving  gifts  if  they  be  poor."  Next 
come  the  Kshatriyas,  or  soldiers,  whose  duties  are  "  to 
defend  the  people,  to  give  alms,  to  sacrifice,  and  to 
shun  the  allurements  of  sensual  gratification."  Then 
come  the  Vaisyas,  or  farmers  and  merchants,  who 
"  cultivate  land,  keep  herds  of  cattle,  carry  on  trade, 
and  lend  at  interest."  And  lastly,  there  are  the  Su- 
dras,  the  great  submerged,  whose  duty  it  is  to  "  serve 
the  before-mentioned  classes  without  depreciating 
their  worth."  A  passage  in  the  Vedas  speaks  of 
these  separate  groups  under  the  analogy  of  the  phys- 
ical organism.  "  When  they  divided  man,  how  many 
did  they  make  him  ?  "  is  the  question.  And  to  this 
there  comes  the  answer,  "  The  Brahmana  was  his 
mouth,  the  Kshatriya  was  made  his  arms,  the  Vaisya  be- 
came his  thighs,  and  the  Sudra  was  born  from  his  feet." 
The  difference  between  the  Brahmana  and  the  Sudra  is 
certainly  as  the  difference  between  the  head  and  the 
feet.  Thus,  to  cite  a  single  example,  whatever  crime  a 
Brahmana  may  commit,  his  person  and  property  are  not 


RELIGION  FOR  TO-DAY 

to  be  injured;  but  the  goods  of  a  Sudra  may  be  seized 
by  a  Brahmana  at  any  time,  and  his  person  is  always 
in  servitude.  The  gulf  between  the  first  three  classes 
of  Hindus  is  deep  and  broad,  and  crossed  only  under 
certain  rigid  restrictions  of  marriage  and  personal 
association.  Between  these  "  wearers  of  the  sacred 
thread,"  however,  and  the  fourth  and  lowest  class,  the 
gulf  is  absolute.  Once  a  Sudra,  always  a  Sudra  — 
an  outcast  from  the  privileges  of  earth. 

In  such  a  hard-and-fast  social  organisation  as  this, 
now,  do  we  have  what  must  be  regarded  as  an  open 
contradiction  of  everything  that  we  have  come  to  mean 
by  human  "  brotherhood."  Imperfect  as  are  our  ap- 
prehension and  application  of  Christian  ideals,  it  would 
be  as  impossible  to  establish  this  caste  system  of  India 
in  our  western  civilisation,  as  to  substitute  for  the  exist- 
ing constitution  of  New  York  State  the  constitution  of 
Plato's  ideal  republic.  And  yet  how  many  and  how 
rigid  are  the  class-distinctions  which  we  recognise,  and 
how  far  therefore  are  we  still  removed  from  that  family- 
idea  of  which  I  spoke  to  you  at  the  beginning.  Go 
to  Europe  to-day,  when  the  heat  of  war  seems  to  have 
welded  the  people  of  each  one  of  the  belligerent  coun- 
tries into  a  single  mass  of  action  and  emotion,  and 
you  will  find  on  every  side  the  survivals  of  the  mediaeval 
feudal  system  which  once  divided  the  king  from  the  serf 
as  absolutely  as  the  Brahmana  is  divided  from  the 
Sudra.  And  even  in  this  America  of  ours,  the  common 
meeting-place  of  all  the  tribes  of  earth,  the  "  melting- 
pot  "  in  which  are  merged  the  races,  religions,  nation- 


THE  CRIME  OF  CASTE  243 

alities  of  five  continents,  there  are  appearing  evidences 
of  class-distinction,  class-feeling  and  class-struggle, 
which  may  well  make  us  tremble  for  the  fate  of  our 
beloved  democracy.  Not  yet  have  we  attained  to  the 
accomplishment  of  a  true  society.  Not  yet  do  we 
understand,  in  all  its  fulness,  the  great  idea  of  a  human 
family.  The  Fatherhood  of  God  is  still  a  dogma  — 
the  Brotherhood  of  Man  is  still  a  dream.  We  are  a 
caste  people,  and  not  a  Christian  people.  And  the  con- 
ditions of  our  caste,  the  barriers  to  our  Christian 
brotherhood,  are  the  things  which  I  would  discuss  in 
this  address. 

First  of  all  among  these  conditions  which  divide  one 
man  from  another  by  the  barrier  of  caste,  is  the  fact  of 
colour.  Strange,  is  it  not,  that  so  slight  a  thing  as 
the  hue  of  a  man's  skin,  should  separate  the  human 
family  into  alien  and  hostile  groups !  Yet  in  all  prob- 
ability it  is  just  here,  in  the  chance  complexion  of  a 
face,  that  the  very  failure  of  the  ideal  of  brotherhood 
had  its  beginning.  Certainly  it  is  not  without  sig- 
nificance that  the  very  ancient  Hindu  word  for  caste 
is  "  varna,"  and  that  this  word  in  its  primitive  form 
means  "  colour."  And  just  as  it  is  interesting  to  note 
that  this  cause  of  separation  goes  back  to  the  very 
origins  of  society,  so  also  is  it  interesting  to  note  that 
it  survives  to-day,  in  all  its  pristine  vigour,  in  that  na- 
tion which  is  the  youngest  of  all  the  great  nations  of 
the  modern  world,  and  which  has  done  more  than  any 
other,  perhaps,  to  wipe  out  unworthy  and  unreason- 
able distinctions  between  men.  The  United  States  is 


RELIGION  FOR  TO-DAY 

here  the  great  offender  —  not  because  the  citizens  of  the 
United  States  are  naturally  more  prejudiced  in  this  di- 
rection than  other  men,  but  rather  because  there  are 
conditions  in  the  United  States  which  pertain  in  no 
other  portion  of  the  habitable  globe.  In  those  coun- 
tries where  white  men  predominate,  there  are  not  enough 
black  men  or  yellow  men  to  constitute  a  problem;  and 
vice  versa,  in  those  countries  where  black  men  or  yellow 
men  predominate,  there  are  not  enough  white  men  to 
constitute  a  problem.  It  is  only  in  the  United  States 
that  the  races  stand  face  to  face  in  numbers  upon  both 
sides  that  are  formidable,  and  as  a  consequence  present 
for  solution  such  a  problem  of  racial  adjustment  as 
the  world  has  never  before  encountered  in  all  its  cen- 
turies of  history.  So  long  as  the  black  man  was  in 
slavery,  of  course,  the  problem  of  relationship  did  not 
exist,  any  more  than  there  exists  to-day  a  problem  of 
the  relations  between  a  man  and  a  horse.  The  Negro 
was  a  beast  of  burden,  a  piece  of  property,  a  labour 
machine  —  and  there  the  thing  began  and  ended. 
When,  however,  the  Negro  was  emancipated,  and  thus 
lifted  by  a  single  stroke  of  the  pen  of  Abraham  Lincoln, 
to  the  high  dignity  of  manhood,  there  came  a  different 
situation  upon  the  instant.  In  the  beginning  of  this 
new  period  of  history,  when  the  Republican  leaders 
were  in  the  saddle,  there  was  an  endeavour  to  extend 
to  the  freedman  the  privileges  of  citizenship,  and  thus 
admit  him,  so  to  speak,  to  the  bosom  of  the  political 
family.  With  the  failure  of  this  endeavour  and  the  re- 
sulting restoration  of  self-government  in  the  South,  the 


THE  CRIME  OF  CASTE  245 

Negro  was  thrust  down,  by  one  device  or  another,  into 
the  position  of  an  inferior;  and  he  stands  to-day  just 
as  truly  a  member  of  a  caste  as  any  of  the  Sudras  of 
distant  India.  All  the  restrictions  of  the  caste  system 
upon  marriage,  upon  the  professions,  upon  social  inter- 
course, especially  that  implied  in  eating  and  drinking, 
are  here  definitely  established.  Furthermore,  that  pe- 
culiarly loathsome  feature  of  caste  society  in  Europe  — 
the  Ghetto  —  is  here  finding  its  beginnings  in  the  segre- 
gation ordinances,  which  confine  the  residences  of  Ne- 
groes to  certain  wards  of  a  city,  or  certain  counties  of 
a  state.  And  then  in  addition,  there  are  developing 
here,  in  the  relations  between  whites  and  blacks,  cer- 
tain new  features  of  outlawry  which  are  altogether 
distinctive  of  America.  Such  are  the  familiar  "  Jim 
Crow "  laws,  separating  the  races  as  they  travel  in 
public  conveyances  —  the  laws  denying  the  Negro  ad- 
mission to  schools,  libraries,  theatres,  and  public  parks 
—  the  laws  excluding  the  Negro  as  a  Negro  from  the 
privileges  of  the  ballot  —  the  laws  forbidding  to  the 
Negro  equal  rights  of  property,  business  opportunity, 
and  personal  liberty.  Hard  as  it  is  to  reconcile  with 
the  ideals  of  our  government  and  our  religion,  the  cold, 
hard  fact  still  remains  that  the  black  man  in  this  "  land 
of  the  free  and  the  home  of  the  brave,"  in  this  year 
of  our  Lord  1916,  is  branded  as  an  alien,  cast  down 
as  an  inferior,  refused  admission  into  the  political  and 
spiritual  household  of  America.  By  every  law  that  can 
be  enacted,  by  every  custom  that  can  be  imagined,  he 
is  denied  that  equal  opportunity  of  "life,  liberty  and 


246  RELIGION  FOR  TO-DAY 

happiness,"  which  is  granted  to  the  humblest  of  the 
white  men  who  come  to  our  shores  from  the  nations  of 
Europe.  In  large  portions  of  the  South,  the  Negroes, 
if  not  actual  slaves,  are  certainly  not  even  peasants; 
rather  are  they  peons  or  serfs,  who  exist  like  the  masses 
of  the  Middle  Ages  by  the  grace  and  at  the  behest  of 
the  rulers  of  the  land.  All  of  which  means  that  we  have 
already,  well-developed,  the  conditions  of  a  caste  system 
of  society.  Like  the  Jews  and  Samaritans  of  ancient 
Palestine,  the  whites  have  no  dealings  with  the  blacks ! 

Now  as  one  who  was  bred  in  the  State  of  Massa- 
chusetts, and  who  has  coursing  in  his  veins  the  blood 
of  two  generations  of  abolitionists,  I  was  for  many 
years  an  unrelenting  critic  of  our  southern  fellow-cit- 
izens whom  I  held  to  be  largely  responsible  for  these  con- 
ditions. As  time  has  gone  on,  however,  and  I  have 
grown  a  little  older,  I  have  gradually  become  more  char- 
itable in  my  judgment  —  for  two  reasons  at  the  very 
least.  In  the  first  place,  I  have  observed  that  the 
northerner,  who  talks  so  much  about  justice  for  the 
black  man,  develops  exactly  the  same  attitude  toward 
the  Negro  population  as  the  southerner  whenever  and 
wherever  that  population  becomes  numerous  enough  to 
constitute  a  social  and  industrial  problem.  It  is  not 
too  much  to  assert  that  in  many  ways  the  lot  of  the 
Negro  in  certain  portions  of  the  North  to-day  is  con- 
siderably harder  than  it  is  in  the  South.  And  in  the 
second  place,  I  have  observed  with  great  interest  in 
recent  years  the  development  in  California  of  the  same 
colour  problem  which  has  long  existed  in  Alabama,  Mis- 


THE  CRIME  OF  CASTE  247 

sissippi  and  adjacent  states,  with  the  single  exception 
that  the  colour  in  this  case  is  yellow  and  not  black.  In 
other  words,  our  southern  fellow-citizen  is  not  different 
in  any  way  from  the  rest  of  us  in  other  sections  of  the 
country.  We  are  human,  every  one,  which  means  in  this 
particular  case  that  we  all  proceed  to  do  exactly  what 
he  has  done  when  we  find  ourselves  face  to  face  with  the 
problem  of  the  colour-line.  Wherefore  does  it  behoove 
us  very  carefully  to  heed  the  injunction,  that  we  "  judge 
not,  that  (we)  be  not  judged." 

But  while  my  attitude  toward  the  persons  who  are 
involved  in  this  direful  problem,  has  changed  very 
greatly  in  recent  years,  my  attitude  toward  the  problem 
itself  remains  to-day  what  it  has  always  been.  To  out- 
law a  man  from  our  society,  to  close  to  him  our  in- 
stitutions and  professions,  to  stamp  him  forever  with 
the  brand  of  inferiority,  because  of  a  personal  char- 
acteristic for  which  he  is  not  responsible,  which  he 
cannot  change,  and  which  has  no  remotest  connection  of 
any  kind  with  his  essential  character  as  a  man,  is  to 
my  mind  not  only  ridiculous  but  wicked.  It  is  as  ab- 
surd and  unjust  to  doom  one  man  to  social  degradation 
because  his  skin  chances  to  be  black  or  perhaps  yellow, 
as  it  would  be  to  doom  another  man  to  similar  degrada- 
tion because  he  chanced  to  have  red  hair,  or  carry  a 
mole  upon  his  cheek.  In  neither  case  is  any  attention 
paid  to  those  qualities  which  are  essential  to  the  dig* 
nity  of  manhood;  and  in  both  cases  is  condemnation 
passed  upon  an  entire  group  of  persons,  without  re- 
gard for  individual  exceptions.  As  to  whether  the  dark 


248  RELIGION  FOR  TO-DAY 

races  are  equal,  from  the  intellectual  and  moral  point 
of  view,  to  the  white  race,  I  do  not  know.  There 
are  plenty  of  scholars  who  assert  that  they  are  not; 
there  are  other  scholars,  like  Prof.  Boas  of  Columbia, 
for  example,  who  declare  most  emphatically  that  they 
are.  For  myself,  when  I  see  the  marvellous  progress 
which  the  Negroes  have  made  in  this  country  during 
the  last  half  century  under  the  most  serious  disad- 
vantages ;  when  I  consider  the  men  whom  they  have  pro- 
duced—  prophets  like  Frederick  Douglas,  statesmen 
like  Booker  Washington,  educators  like  Major  Moton, 
poets  like  Paul  Lawrence  Dunbar,  scholars  like  Prof. 
DuBois,  musicians  like  Samuel  Tayler  Coleridge  —  and 
then,  when  I  look  across  the  seas  to  the  Empire  of 
the  Mikado  and  see  what  the  Japanese  have  done  in  the 
space  of  a  generation,  I  am  tempted  to  believe  that  the 
colour  of  the  skin  has  little  to  do  with  the  basic  ele- 
ments of  genius  and  character.  But  in  neither  case 
does  this  question  touch  the  real  heart  of  our  problem. 
If  the  coloured  races  are  equal  to  the  white,  they  are 
entitled,  of  course,  to  equal  opportunity  with  the  white. 
If,  on  the  other  hand,  the  coloured  races  are  inferior 
to  the  white,  then  are  they  entitled  by  way  of  compen- 
sation to  something  more  than  equal  opportunity.  But 
the  important  thing  to  note  is,  as  Edmund  Burke  points 
out  in  his  famous  speech  on  Conciliation  with  America, 
that  there  is  no  just  method  of  drawing  up  "  an  indict- 
ment against  a  whole  people."  It  is  a  crime  to  thrust 
down  an  entire  group  of  persons  into  a  pit  of  degrada- 
tion, from  which  no  escape  in  individual  cases  is  toler- 


THE  CRIME  OF  CASTE  249 

ated.  Inferior  or  not  inferior,  the  way  must  be  kept 
wide  open  for  every  black  man  and  yellow  man,  like 
every  white  man,  to  attain  the  utmost  fulfilment  of  his 
powers  under  the  most  favourable  circumstances;  and 
when  such  fulfilment  has  been  realised,  personal  recog- 
nition and  association  must  be  granted  as  freely  in  the 
one  case  as  in  the  other.  It  is  not  surprising,  to  my 
mind,  that,  when  the  apostle  Philip  was  ordered  by  "  an 
angel  of  the  Lord  "  to  "  go  toward  the  south  .  .  .  from 
Jerusalem  to  Gaza,"  and  discovered  that  his  mission 
was  to  "  a  man  of  Ethiopia,"  he  "  preached  Jesus  "  unto 
the  Negro  as  freely  as  though  he  were  a  white  man,  and 
going  side  by  side  with  him  into  the  water,  baptised  him 
gladly  in  the  name  of  the  Lord ! 

Turning  now  from  the  castes  which  are  established 
on  the  line  of  colour,  I  come  to  a  second  barrier  to 
brotherhood  —  namely,  that  of  creed.  If  it  is  surpris- 
ing that  one  man  should  refuse  to  have  anything  to 
do  with  another  man,  because  of  the  colour  of  his  skin, 
it  is  even  more  surprising,  to  my  mind,  that  he  should 
refuse  to  have  dealings  with  him  because  of  the  char- 
acter of  his  opinions.  And  yet,  as  a  plain  matter  of 
history,  nothing  has  created  such  bitterness  between 
man  and  man,  and  thus  dug  such  wide  and  deep  gulfs 
of  separation,  as  matters  of  political  and  theological 
belief.  Examples  of  this  kind  of  caste  organisation, 
on  the  basis  of  creeds,  are  so  abundant  as  to  be  well- 
nigh  embarrassing.  But  we  do  not  have  to  look  very 
far  for  that  particular  example  which  is  most  signifi- 
cant and  terrible.  I  refer  of  course  to  the  endless 


250  RELIGION  FOR  TO-DAY 

persecution  of  the  Jews  by  those  who  acclaim  themselves 
the  followers  of  the  gentle  Nazarene. 

I  suppose  that,  in  all  fairness,  we  must  say  that  the 
Jews  are  not  wholly  unresponsible  for  the  conditions  of 
caste-life  which  have  been  their  destiny  in  all  ages  of 
Christian  history.  There  is  no  question  but  what  the 
Jew's  belief  in  his  unique  character  as  "  the  chosen 
people  "  of  the  Lord,  his  rigid  fidelity  to  his  own  pecul- 
iar customs  of  daily  life,  his  steadfast  refusal  to  as- 
similate in  any  fashion  with  the  people  among  whom  his 
lot  has  been  cast,  have  all  played  their  part  in  bringing 
down  upon  his  devoted  head  such  a  storm  of  hatred  and 
abuse  as  has  been  borne  by  no  other  single  people  since 
the  beginning  of  the  world.  But  when  you  have  said  the 
most  and  the  worst  that  can  be  said  about  the  exclusive- 
ness  of  the  Jew,  you  have  left  altogether  untouched  that 
thing  which  is  the  central  factor  in  the  persecutions  of 
outlawry  and  death  which  he  has  suffered.  At  the  heart 
of  the  whole  wretched  business  is  the  resentment  of  the 
Christian  against  the  Jews'  repudiation  of  Jesus,  and 
the  determination  of  the  Christian  to  wreak  vengeance 
upon  those  whom  he  regards  as  spiritually  guilty  of 
the  Master's  crucifixion.  Nothing  is  too  bad  for  the 
man  who  believes  what  the  Jew  believes,  and  does  what 
the  Jew  is  not  unwilling  to  do.  Therefore  is  this 
unhappy  people  cast  altogether  out  of  the  circle  of 
Christian  charity.  They  are  thrust  into  nameless 
Ghettos,  burdened  with  legal  disabilities,  outraged  in 
property  and  in  person.  Again  and  again,  as  in  Spain 
in  the  Middle  Ages,  they  are  expelled  from  their  homes 


THE  CRIME  OF  CASTE  251 

and  driven  into  wildernesses  and  deserts.  Again  and 
again,  as  in  Russia  yesterday,  they  are  set  upon  by 
the  Black  Hundreds,  and  murdered,  men,  women,  and 
children,,  in  cold  blood.  Again  and  again,  as  in  the 
Great  War  at  this  present  time,  they  are  the  playthings 
of  contending  armies  —  the  folk  whom  none  may  de- 
fend, and  all  may  plunder  and  destroy.  To  us  here  in 
America,  these  things  seem  far  away  and  therefore  as 
unreal  as  a  parable  or  legend.  We  cannot  imagine  suf- 
fering such  horrors  as  these  which  have  been  the  bread 
and  meat  of  the  tribes  of  Judah  for  centuries  gone  by  — 
much  less  can  we  imagine  inflicting  such  horrors  upon 
others,  even  Jews.  And  yet,  in  our  feeble  and  timid 
way,  are  we  not  ourselves  persecutors,  and  under  the 
conditions  of  our  free  democracy,  do  we  not  do  all  that 
in  us  lies  to  reduce  our  Hebrew  brethren  to  the  condition 
of  a  "  despised  and  rejected  "  caste?  In  how  many  of 
the  high-toned  clubs  of  New  York,  are  Jews  admitted  on 
the  same  terms  as  Gentiles?  In  how  many  of  our  sum- 
mer hotels  can  a  man  of  Hebrew  extraction  find  hospi- 
tality? In  how  many  of  our  colleges  are  Jewish  boys 
received  by  their  fellow-students  without  discrimina- 
tion ?  Why  is  that  when  Mr.  Brandeis  is  appointed  to 
the  bench  of  the  Supreme  Court  by  President  Wilson, 
it  is  regarded  as  a  matter  of  great  public  importance 
that  this  lawyer  is  a  Jew?  In  America,  as  in  Russia, 
the  Jews  compose  a  caste,  and  receive  all  the  disabilities^ 
and  degradations  which  belong  to  such  a  position.  To 
the  limit  of  our  daring,  and  within  the  recognised  re- 
straints of  our  law  and  custom,  we  scorn  these  people, 


RELIGION  FOR  TO-DAY 

spit  upon  them,  outlaw  them.  In  New  York  as  in 
Kishinieff  there  is  a  Ghetto  —  and  the  difference  in  its 
character  is  the  difference  not  between  the  feelings  of 
Americans  and  Russians,  but  between  the  weapons  of 
persecution  which  are  employed. 

But  it  is  not  merely  of  the  Jews  that  I  would  speak 
in  illustration  of  the  kind  of  caste  that  exists  on  the 
basis  of  religious  creed.  Let  me  ask  you  what  we  are 
to  think  about  the  agitation  which  springs  up  peri- 
odically in  this  country,  as  in  other  Protestant  coun- 
tries, against  our  brethren  of  the  Roman  Catholic 
Church?  The  nature  of  this  agitation  I  need  not  de- 
scribe at  any  length.  It  takes  the  form  of  such  a  news- 
paper as  The  Menace.  It  conducts  secret  and  un- 
scrupulous campaigns  against  candidates  for  political 
office  who  are  guilty  of  the  crime  of  being  Catholics. 
Once  in  a  while  it  breaks  out  openly  in  such  an  organisa- 
tion as  the  American  Protective  Association,  of  unholy 
memory.  But  always  its  purpose  is  the  same  —  to 
brand  the  Romanist  with  the  brand  of  Cain,  and  make 
him  "  a  fugitive  and  a  wanderer  in  the  earth."  And  all 
on  the  ground,  forsooth,  that  the  Roman  priesthood  is 
corrupt,  that  the  Roman  hierarchy  is  secretly  hostile 
to  our  American  democracy,  and  that  no  man  can  hon- 
estly be  an  American  and  a  Romanist  at  the  same  time! 
Now  that  the  Catholic  clergy  are  far  from  perfect  I 
canVeadily  believe;  that  the  Catholic  Church  in  spirit 
and  in  principle  represents  the  exact  antithesis  of  the 
free,  progressive  ideals  of  America,  I  must  admit;  and 
that  I,  as  an  individual,  could  not  be  an  American  and 


THE  CRIME  OF  CASTE  253 

a  Catholic  at  one  and  the  same  time,  I  cannot  deny. 
But  that  every  priest  is  a  sinner  after  the  flesh,  and 
every  Catholic  layman  is  a  secret  traitor,  I  frankly 
find  it  impossible  to  believe.  If  I  had  no  other  evidence 
before  my  eyes  than  the  history  of  Catholicism  since 
this  war  started  —  the  refusal  of  Pius  X  to  bless  the 
arms  of  Austria,  and  his  death  from  a  broken  heart  over 
his  failure  to  prevent  war,  the  unfaltering  fidelity  of  his 
successor,  Benedict,  to  the  universal  ideals  of  his  church 
—  the  noble  letters  of  Cardinal  Mercier  in  protest 
against  the  German  violations  of  Belgium  —  the  won- 
derful appeal  of  the  Belgian  clergy  to  their  colleagues 
of  the  Empire  —  if  I  had  no  other  evidence  than  this,  I 
would  have  enough  to  confute  the  movement  in  this 
country  to  reduce  the  Catholics  to  the  condition  of 
pariahs.  After  all,  I  cannot  get  away  from  the  idea 
that  Catholics,  after  the  analogy  of  Jews  and  Negroes, 
are  Americans  before  they  are  Catholics,  and  men  be- 
fore they  are  Americans.  There  are  fundamental  hu- 
man qualities  in  us  all  —  and  among  these  qualities  are 
"love,  joy,  peace,  long-suffering,  prudence,  gentleness, 
faithfulness,  meekness,  temperance,"  against  all  of 
which,  we  are  told,  "  there  is  no  law."  A  man  is  not 
deprived  of  these  qualities,  if  he  is  born  a  Catholic, 
neither  does  he  put  aside  these  qualities,  if  he  becomes  a 
Catholic.  Nothing  is  more  ineradicable  within  us  than 
our  humanity.  Everything  else  is  superficial  in  com- 
parison. See  this,  trust  this,  rest  in  this  —  and  behold, 
the  caste  of  Catholicism,  like  the  caste  of  colour,  be- 
comes intolerable.  "  Beloved,  now  (at  bottom),  we  are 


254  RELIGION  FOR  TO-DAY 

the  sons  of  God,"  and  it  doth  not  greatly  matter  what, 
aside  from  this,  we  may  or  may  not  be ! 

But  it  is  not  in  colour  and  creed  only  that  we  find  the 
conditions  of  what  I  have  ventured  to  call  the  crime  of 
caste.  Fully  as  important  as  either  one  of  these  con- 
ditions which  I  have  mentioned,  at  least  from  the  stand- 
point of  the  future,  are  the  class  distinctions  which  di- 
vide men  on  the  basis  of  occupation  or  social  standing. 
In  Europe,  these  distinctions,  as  we  know  them  to-day, 
had  their  origin  in  that  feudal  system  which  was  the  only 
government  that  the  peoples  of  the  continent  knew 
for  a  period  of  at  least  five  hundred  years.  At  the 
top  was  the  king,  with  the  great  company  of  princes, 
dukes,  and  bishops  of  the  land.  Then  came  the  more 
or  less  independent  burghers,  in  the  various  ranks  of 
merchants,  artisans  and  apprentices.  Beneath  these 
were  the  free  peasants.  And  then  came  that  great 
mass  of  serfs  who  were  attached  to  the  soil,  and  thus 
were  little  better  than  slaves.  In  the  heyday  of  its 
prosperity,  this  was  a  system  of  caste  almost  as  rigid  as 
that  of  India ;  and  it  is  interesting  to  note  how,  in  this 
late  age,  when  feudalism  as  a  form  of  government  has 
long  since  disappeared,  the  outlines  of  the  system  still 
survive.  Take  England,  for  example.  Here  at  the  top 
are  the  lords  —  dukes,  counts,  barons,  almost  without 
number  —  who  live  on  the  land,  monopolise  the  offices  of 
the  army,  and  enjoy  all  to  themselves  the  upper  of  the 
two  houses  of  the  imperial  legislature.  Then  come  the 
bankers,  manufacturers,  brewers,  and  professional  men 
who  enjoyed,  until  a  comparatively  few  years  ago,  al- 


THE  CRIME  OF  CASTE  255 

most  a  monopoly  of  the  House  of  Commons.  Then 
comes  what  is  known  as  the  great  middle  dass  —  the 
traders  and  small  merchants,  who  are  themselves  divided 
into  various  subsidiary  classes.  Thus,  in  a  drama  of 
English  life  recently  produced  in  this  country,  a  certain 
character,  on  the  occasion  of  her  marriage,  begins  at 
once  to  "  lord  it  "  over  her  sisters,  and  when  asked  for 
an  explanation  of  her  pride,  points  out  with  great 
emphasis  that,  whereas  her  sisters  are  still  the  daughters 
of  a  retailer,  she  is  now  become  the  wife  of  a  wholesaler, 
which  unquestionably  makes  all  the  difference  in  the 
world !  Then  below  the  traders  come  the  labourers  and 
farmers.  And  last  of  all,  that  unhappiest  of  English 
classes  outside  the  wretched  dregs  of  the  city  slums,  the 
starving  agricultural  labourers  of  the  country-side. 

The  rapid  extension  of  democracy  in  England  in 
recent  years  has,  of  course,  done  a  great  deal  in  the 
way  of  tearing  down  the  barriers  of  separation  be- 
tween certain  of  these  classes  which  I  have  just  now 
described.  What  is  even  more  important  in  this  direc- 
tion, however,  is  the  development  within  the  last  one 
hundred  years  of  what  we  know  to-day  as  capitalism, 
which  is  redistributing  all  the  ancient  classes  of  society 
into  the  two  hitherto  unknown  classes  of  capitalist  or 
employer  on  the  one  hand,  and  labourer  or  employe  on 
the  other.  And  it  is  here,  in  this  new  division  of  the 
social  whole,  that  class  as  a  condition  of  caste  organisa- 
tion is  becoming  manifest  in  our  own  country.  America, 
of  course,  has  never  known  the  distinction  between  lords 
and  commons,  or  burgher  and  peasant.  For  a  time 


256  RELIGION  FOR  TO-DAY 

there  was  practically  no  difference  between  capitalist 
and  labourer,  so  few  in  the  early  days  were  accumula- 
tions of  capital  and  so  free  the  conditions  of  advance- 
ment from  one  status  to  the  other.  But  to-day  all  this 
is  changed.  In  America,  exactly  as  in  England  and 
France  and  Germany,  the  development  of  class-con- 
sciousness between  employer  and  employe  has  been  the 
most  important  historical  event  of  our  time.  To  a 
greater  extent  than  most  of  us  realise,  I  believe,  we 
are  developing,  in  all  our  capitalistic  countries,  a  gulf 
of  separation  between  those  who  invest  and  those  who 
labour,  which  means  a  caste  organisation  of  the  most 
threatening  description.  That  this  gulf,  if  allowed  to 
widen,  means  the  death  of  our  democracy,  and  the  end 
sooner  or  later  of  our  civilisation,  are  among  the  least 
of  the  dreadful  prophecies  that  must  be  made  about  it. 
And  just  in  this  one  fact  is  the  light  that  burns  as 
clear  as  a  beacon  in  the  darkness  of  the  labour-struggles 
of  our  time.  These  struggles  are  interpreted  again  and 
again  as  the  selfish  attack  of  the  have-nots  upon  the 
haves  —  as  a  blind  endeavour  of  the  proletariat  to  seize 
the  riches  which  they  themselves  have  been  unable  to 
earn,  and  which  they  envy  in  the  hands  of  others  — 
as  a  mad  expression  of  the  lust  and  cruelty  which  arc 
latent  in  the  heart  of  the  primitive  man.  At  bottom, 
however,  there  is  something  far  deeper  and  finer  than 
anything  of  this  kind.  In  its  naked  reality,  this  labour 
struggle  is  nothing  in  the  world  but  an  instinctive  revolt 
against  the  doom  of  caste  —  it  is  a  passionate  sac- 
rifice for  the  ideal  of  brotherhood.  It  is  only  the 


THE  CRIME  OF  CASTE  257 

* 

latest  and,  in  some  ways,  the  mightiest  of  the  battles 
which  man  has  been  fighting  since  the  beginning  of  the 
world  to  tear  down  the  artificial  barriers  which  cut  him 
off  from  brotherly  relations  with  his  fellows.  At  one 
time,  it  was  the  fight  of  the  slave  against  the  master; 
then  it  was  the  fight  of  the  subject  against  the  king; 
now  in  our  time  it  is  the  fight  of  the  labourer  against 
the  capitalist.  And  always,  in  every  form,  is  it  the 
fight  to  tear  down  what  divides,  to  smite  the  fetters  of 
caste,  to  establish  a  veritable  family  of  brethren.  If  it 
is  true  that  the  few  are  plucked  down  from  their  high 
estate,  it  is  also  true  that  the  many  are  lifted  up  from 
the  pits  of  degradation  in  which  they  languish.  And 
always  is  the  resultant  redistribution  of  society  on  the 
common  level  of  equal  opportunity  and  power,  the  salva- 
tion of  the  race.  The  caste  of  colour  and  of  creed  are 
bad  enough,  heaven  knows ;  but  neither  one  of  these 
conditions  of  alienation,  to  my  mind,  is  so  fatal  to 
human  welfare  as  the  class  distinctions  between  high 
and  low,  great  and  small,  capitalist  and  labourer,  em- 
ployer and  employe.  Our  labour  battle  is  terrible  — 
it  is  an  indictment  of  our  intelligence  and  goodwill 
as  a  people  that  we  solve  this  problem  in  no  more 
wholesome  and  happy  way.  But  infinitely  better  is 
this  struggle,  than  the  slow  hardening  of  our  two 
great  social  classes  into  the  castes  of  the  rich  and  of 
the  poor.  Better  the  earthquake  than  the  glacier  — 
better  the  throes  of  birth  to  newness  of  life  than  the 
still,  cold  torpor  of  perpetual  death ! 

This  brings  me  to  the  last  barrier  of  brotherhood 


258  RELIGION  FOR  TO-DAY 

of  which  I  would  speak  in  this  address  —  namely, 
the  barrier  of  wealth,  or,  as  I  would  like  to  call  it, 
somewhat  vulgarly  perhaps,  the  barrier  of  cash.  It 
would  seem  at  first  sight,  perhaps,  as  though  this 
condition  or  line  of  caste  were  the  least  harmful  of 
any  that  I  have  mentioned.  And  yet  I  must  admit, 
for  my  own  part  at  least,  that  this  is  the  one  of  all 
the  four,  of  which  I  have  the  most  unsatisfactory 
understanding,  and  with  which  most  certainly,  I  have 
the  slightest  sympathy.  Thus,  I  think  I  know  what 
is  meant  by  a  sincere  person  who  argues,  not  from 
prejudice  but  from  science,  that  the  Negro  is  a  human 
of  an  inferior  type,  and  is  to  be  regarded  therefore  as 
a  menace  to  a  white  civilisation.  I  am  sure  that  I  un- 
derstand the  attitude  of  my  friend  who  declares  that 
it  is  quite  impossible  for  the  American  democracy  and 
the  Catholic  hierarchy  to  exist  together  side  by  side 
within  the  borders  of  the  same  land.  I  am  confident 
that  I  can  enter  into  the  mind  and  heart  of  the  man 
who  condemns  the  activities  of  labour,  and  regards  the 
subjection  of  labour  to  capital  as  the  condition  of  a 
stable  society.  All  of  these  positions  I  can  understand 
and  even,  sympathise  with  —  although  no  one  of  them, 
as  I  have  shown,  is  my  own.  But  when  I  come  to 
the  man  who  bases  his  claims  for  superiority  not 
on  the  character  of  his  race,  or  the  truth  of  his 
creed,  or  the  prestige  of  his  class,  but  on  the  mere  sum 
of  money  which  he  possesses  —  money  which  he  may 
have  made  himself,  but  which  is  quite  as  likely  to  be  the 
earnings  of  other  hands  —  money  which  may  be  the  fruit 


THE  CRIME  OF  CASTE  259 

of  honest  labour  or  skilful  administration  or  inventive 
genius,  but  is  quite  as  likely  to  be  the  product  of  luck 
or  out-and-out  robbery  — •  money  which  may  be  used  as 
an  instrument  of  love,  and  thus  to  the  blessing  of  man- 
kind, but  may  quite  as  easily  be  used  as  an  instru- 
ment of  power,  and  thus  to  the  despoiling  of  man- 
kind —  I  find  a  man  with  whom  it  is  almost  impossible 
for  me  to  sympathise.  Just  as  there  is  nothing  so  de- 
lightful as  the  man  who,  with  large  wealth  in  his  pos- 
session, remains  an  essential  democrat,  scornful  of  the 
false  distinctions  which  he  might  purchase  with  his 
money  —  so  is  there  nothing,  to  my  mind,  quite  so 
loathsome  as  the  man,  or  the  woman  for  that  matter, 
who  on  the  basis  of  nothing  in  the  world  but  cash  as- 
sumes the  power  of  leadership  and  social  control.  We 
all  of  us  recognise  the  especially  unworthy  character  of 
this  type  of  caste  —  hence  our  contempt  for  the  "  fads 
and  fancies  "  of  the  nouveau  riclie,  our  hatred  of  the 
snob  and  the  cad,  and  our  persistent  refusal  to  take 
seriously  a  so-called  "  society  "  here  in  America  which, 
in  contrast  to  the  lordly  society  of  England  or  of 
France,  rests  upon  no  prouder  foundation  than  that 
of  the  money  coined  out  of  oil-wells,  hogs,  or  steel- 
rails.  Whenever  I  look  upon  these  aristocrats  of  cash 
who  never  lift  anything  heavier  than  a  cigarette  or  a 
golf-club,  or  give  their  minds  to  anything  more  impor- 
tant than  steering  a  yacht,  whose  chief  boast  is  that 
they  never  did  a  day's  work  in  their  lives,  and  whose  one 
particular  horror  is  that  of  association  with  the  "  great 
unwashed  "  - 1  always  find  myself  thinking  of  Shake- 


260  RELIGION  FOR  TO-DAY 

speare  the  poor  player,  of  Robert  Burns  the  peasant 
ploughman,  of  Abraham  Lincoln  the  ignorant  rail-split- 
ter, of  Thomas  Edison  the  train-boy,  of  Jesus  of  Naz- 
areth the  carpenter !  The  whole  trouble  with  this  mat- 
ter of  cash,  as  a  condition  of  caste,  is  that  it  fails 
to  touch,  even  remotely,  those  things  which  really  con- 
stitute what  we  mean  by  manhood  and  womanhood. 
If  there  is  anything  that  is  alien  to  the  glories  of  the 
spirit,  it  is  this  purely  material  talisman  known  as 
money.  There  are  rich  men  who  are  men  in  every  sense 
of  the  word  —  there  are  poor  men  who  are  men  in 
every  sense  of  the  word.  But  the  manhood  in  each 
case  is  something  altogether  apart  from  the  accident 
of  cash.  And  yet  it  is  this  which  comes  nearer  to 
constituting  what  we  know  as  caste  here  in  America 
than  anything  else  which  could  be  named.  So  far 
as  we  have  any  aristocracy  in  this  country,  it  is  an 
aristocracy  not  of  brains  as  in  India,  not  of  birth  as 
in  England,  not  of  achievement  as  in  France,  but  of 
that  sordid  thing,  money.  Here  more  truly  than  in 
the  twelve  millions  of  our  Negroes,  the  fifteen  millions 
of  our  Catholics,  the  thirty  millions  of  our  labourers, 
here,  in  these  little  groups  of  the  "  four  hundred,"  in 
this  city  or  in  that,  is  the  real  menace  to  our  civilisation. 
The  worship  of  money,  with  its  resulting  caste  of  cash, 
ruined  the  Roman  Empire,  and  it  is  not  inconceivable 
that  it  may  yet  ruin  the  American  democracy. 

Such  are  the  lines  of  caste  —  the  barriers  to 
brotherhood  —  which  I  would  emphasise.  It  must 
have  become  evident  to  you,  as  I  described  each  one, 


THE  CRIME  OF  CASTE  261 

that  the  same  great  evil  is  inherent  in  them  all.  It 
makes  no  difference  whether  it  be  colour,  or  creed, 
or  class,  or  cash  —  we  have  in  each  case  a  distinction 
between  man  and  man,  which  recognises  as  important 
that  which  is  superficial,  accidental,  or  temporary,  and 
ignores  as  of  no  concern  that  which  is  fundamental,  es- 
sential, and  eternal.  It  is  only  when  we  look  at  the 
surface  of  things  that  we  can  divide  men  into  groups 
and  rate  them  as  superiors  and  inferiors.  When  we 
pierce  beneath  the  surface,  and  come  face  to  face  with 
the  realities  of  life,  we  see  that  men  are  simply  men, 
endowed  with  the  same  abilities,  burdened  by  the  same 
woes,  beset  by  the  same  temptations,  doomed  to  the  same 
destiny.  What  Shylock,  in  the  Merchant  of  Venice, 
says  of  the  Jew,  must  be  said  of  every  despised  race 
of  humankind.  "  Hath  not  a  Jew  eyes  ?  hath  not  a 
Jew  hands,  organs,  dimensions,  senses,  affections,  pas- 
sions ?  fed  with  the  same  food,  hurt  with  the  same  weap- 
ons, subject  to  the  same  diseases,  healed  by  the  same 
means,  warmed  and  cooled  by  the  same  summer  and 
winter,  as  a  Christian  is?  If  you  prick  us,  do  we  not 
bleed?  if  you  tickle  us,  do  we  not  laugh?  if  you  poison 
us,  do  we  not  die?  " 

Humanity,  with  all  its  common  goods  and  ills  —  this, 
after  all,  is  the  only  thing  that  counts.  And  there  is 
but  one  caste  which  is  consistent  with  this  —  namely, 
the  caste  of  character.  "  The  good,  the  kind,  the  brave, 
the  sweet  " —  these  are  the  superior  ones  of  earth.  And 
behold,  the  paradox !  that  this  very  distinction  of  soul 
which  separates  these  men  and  women  from  their  fel- 


262  RELIGION  FOR  TO-DAY 

lows,  in  a  great  aristocracy  of  the  spirit,  unites  them 
again  to  all  their  kind  by  the  bond  of  joyful  love.  "  He 
that  is  greatest  among  you  shall  be  your  servant." 
To  be  great,  is  to  be  lowly  —  to  be  exalted,  is  to  be 
humble  —  to  be  the  son  of  God,  is  to  be  the  brother  of 
mankind.  That  caste,  therefore,  is  alone  valid,  which 
conquers  caste.  That  aristocracy  is  alone  just  which 
is  democracy. 

"  Then,  brother  man,   fold  to  thy  heart  thy  brother ! 

For  where  love  dwells,  the  peace  of  God  is  there, 
To  worship  rightly  is  to  love  each  other; 

Each  smile  a  hymn,  each  kindly  deed   a  prayer." 


THE  WAR 


MAN:  AN  END,  NOT  A  MEANS 

THERE  are  few  questions  which  have  been  more  widely 
discussed  among  church  historians  and  theologians  in 
recent  years  than  the  question  as  to  what  is  the  greatest 
of  the  blessings  which  Christianity  has  conferred  upon 
the  human  race.  The  answers  to  this  question  have  at 
times  been  various,  but  in  nearly  every  case  the  con- 
clusion has  been  reached,  sooner  or  later,  that  this  bless- 
ing is  an  idea,  and  that  this  idea  is  to  be  found  in  the 
great  conception  of  the  sanctity  of  human  life.  Mr. 
Lecky,  in  his  History  of  European  Morals,  puts  this 
sublime  idea  first  among  what  he  calls  "  the  priceless 
blessings  (which)  European  civilisation  (has)  bestowed 
upon  mankind " ;  and  all  competent  authorities,  with 
whom  I  chance  to  be  acquainted,  are  in  agreement  with 
him  upon  this  point. 

If  we  seek  the  origin  or  cause  of  this  idea,  we  shall 
find  it  without  any  question  in  the  revolutionary  inter- 
pretation of  human  nature  which  was  inherent  in  the 
teachings  of  Jesus  and  his  immediate  successors.  Pre- 
vious to  the  advent  of  the  Nazarene,  men  were  regarded 
almost  exclusively  in  the  mass,  and  were  therefore  looked 
upon  as  having  little  or  no  significance  as  individuals. 
Of  course  there  were  always  certain  favoured  men,  like 
the  kings  and  the  priests,  who  were  set  apart  as  chosen 
beings,  and  sometimes  regarded  as  divine.  But  the  vast 
majority  of  mankind  were  never  raised  to  any  dignity 

265 


266  RELIGION  FOR  TO-DAY 

of  recognition  or  of  power.  They  were  simply  the 
common  herd  —  the  hoi  polloi,  as  the  Greeks  called  them 
— "  the  hewers  of  wood  and  the  drawers  of  water,"  as 
they  are  described  in  the  Old  Testament.  As  contrasted 
with  the  kings  and  princes,  they  were  like  so  many  ani- 
mals, conveniently  provided  for  the  service  of  the 
great  ones  of  the  earth,  and  in  themselves  of  no  more 
distinctive  value  than  "  the  ox  (which)  knoweth  his 
owner,"  and  "  the  ass  (which  knoweth)  his  master's 
crib."  Plato,  the  greatest  teacher  of  antiquity,  inter- 
prets this  whole  idea  of  human  nature  with  marvellous 
clearness,  in  the  parable  which  appears  at  the  close  of 
the  third  book  of  the  Republic.  All  men,  he  says,  were 
fashioned  in  the  bowels  of  the  earth,  "  from  whence,  as 
soon  as  they  were  thoroughly  elaborated,  the  earth,  their 
common  mother,  sent  them  to  its  surface."  In  the  com- 
position of  some  few  of  these  men,  the  gods  mixed  gold ; 
and  these  are  the  ones  who  are  of  "  the  highest  value  " 
and  therefore  competent  to  rule.  In  the  composition 
of  others,  the  gods  made  silver  an  ingredient ;  and  these 
are  the  ones  who  compose  the  class  of  guardians  or 
soldiers,  who  are  charged  with  the  task  of  protecting  the 
state  from  invasion.  In  the  composition  of  the  great 
mass  of  men,  however,  there  is  involved  no  nobler  ingredi- 
ent than  that  of  iron  or  copper.  These  men  therefore 
are  of  little  or  no  value,  and  must  be  doomed  to  the 
degradation  of  toil  in  the  field  or  at  the  workbench. 
The  rulers,  says  Plato,  must  "  observe  nothing  more 
closely  .  .  .  than  the  children  that  are  born,  to  see 
which  of  these  metals  enters  into  the  composition  of 


MAN:  AN  END,  NOT  A  MEANS         267 

their  souls ;  and  whenever  a  child  is  born  .  .  .  with  an 
alloy  of  copper  or  iron,  they  are  to  have  no  manner  of 
pity  upon  it,  but  giving  it  the  value  (or  lack  of  value) 
that  belongs  to  its  nature,  they  are  to  thrust  it  away 
into  the  class  of  artisans  or  agriculturists." 

Now  it  was  into  a  world,  the  finest  mind  of  which 
could  reach  no  loftier  conception  of  human  nature 
and  human  destiny  than  this,  that  there  came  the  revo- 
lutionary ideas  of  Christianity.  At  the  bottom  of  them 
all  was  Jesus's  fundamental  conception  of  God  as  the 
loving  father  of  the  race,  and  of  men  as  the  children  of 
his  holy  spirit.  This  divine  relationship,  which  was 
represented  as  belonging  to  all  men,  and  not  merely 
to  the  disciples  or  even  to  the  Jews,  at  once,  of  course, 
put  the  precious  gold,  to  use  the  Platonic  phraseology, 
into  the  composition  of  every  human  being,  however 
humble  or  insignificant  from  the  worldly  point  of  view ; 
and  thus  inevitably  gave  a  value  to  human  nature  in 
every  form  and  under  every  condition  which  it  had 
never  had  before.  Every  man  was  now  raised  to  the 
dignity  of  a  child  of  God.  Every  man  was  now  as- 
sured of  his  appropriate  share  of  the  love  and  care  of 
God.  Every  man  was  now  infinitely  precious  in  the 
sight  of  God,  even  though  he  seemed  to  his  fellow- 
mortals  to  be  of  no  more  worth  than  the  di.rt  under 
their  feet.  Again  and  again  did  the  Nazarene  empha- 
sise the  fact,  as  though  he  knew  that  it  was  difficult 
for  his  contemporaries  to  understand,  that  even  the 
least  among  the  sons  of  men  were  to  be  cherished  and 
not  despised.  "  See  that  ye  despise  not  one  of  these 


268  RELIGION  FOR  TO-DAY 

little  ones  " — "  It  is  not  the  will  of  your  Father  which 
is  in  heaven  that  one  of  these  little  ones  should  perish  " 
— "  Verily  I  say  unto  you  that  inasmuch  as  ye  did  it 
not  unto  one  of  the  least  of  these  my  brethren,  ye  did 
it  not  unto  me  " —  these  are  among  the  most  character- 
istic, as  well  as  the  most  beautiful,  of  the  sayings  of 
the  Master. 

Exactly  this  same  point  of  view  as  to  the  worth  of 
human  nature,  is  found  in  the  letters  of  Paul,  although 
the  language  in  which  it  is  expressed  is  that  of  the 
theologian  rather  than  that  of  the  popular  teacher. 
To  Paul,  even  as  to  Jesus,  all  men  are  "  the  off- 
spring of  God,"  and  therefore  of  divine  lineage.  What 
the  Apostle  to  the  Gentiles  adds  to  the  doctrine  of  the 
Nazarene  is  the  whole  conception  of  the  Atonement,  by 
which  the  worth  of  even  the  humblest  and  most  sinful 
individual  is  represented  as  so  great  that  the  sacrifice 
of  the  Son  of  God  upon  the  cross  of  Calvary  was 
not  too  high  a  price  to  pay  for  his  redemption.  St. 
John  sets  forth  this  same  doctrine  in  his  famous  state- 
ment that  "  God  so  loved  the  world," —  by  which  is 
meant  of  course  the  people  in  the  world  — "  that  he 
gave  his  only  begotten  Son,  that  whosoever  believeth 
on  him  should  not  perish,  but  should  have  eternal  life." 
Other  statements  of  this  same  idea  are  numerous.  But 
they  all  come  down  to  exactly  the  same  proposition,  that 
all  men  are  related  to  God  and  thus  have  a  spiritual 
significance  which  is  incalculable.  They  are  divine  be- 
ings, destined  to  immortality,  "  united  to  one  another  by 
a  special  community  of  redemption."  Not  one  can  be 


MAN:  AN  END,  NOT  A  MEANS         269 

spared  from  the  divine  plan.  Not  one  can  be  "  cast 
as  rubbish  to  the  void."  The  most  wretched  beggar  at 
the  gate,  like  the  most  benighted  heathen  in  a  distant 
land,  has  an  eternal  significance  in  his  life  which  far 
outruns-  anything  that  eye  hath  seen,  or  ear  heard,  or 
the  heart  of  man  conceived.  Every  human  creature  is 
made  of  gold,  and  therefore  is  every  human  creature, 
like  the  favoured  governors  in  Plato's  ideal  society,  of 
"  the  highest  value." 

It  was  out  of  this  revolutionary  conception  of  human 
nature  that  there  grew  up  that  distinctively  Christian 
idea  of  the  sanctity  of  human  life,  which  constitutes, 
as  I  have  said,  the  greatest  blessing  that  Christianity 
has  conferred  upon  mankind.  What  this  regard  for 
human  life  really  meant  for  the  safeguarding  of  the 
higher  interests  of  the  race  was  illustrated  at  the 
very  opening  of  Christian  history,  by  the  startling 
declaration  that  it  is  a  sin  for  one  man  to  kill  another 
man  for  his  amusement,  or  convenience,  or  the  gratifica- 
tion of  any  selfish  motive  whatsoever. 

That  this  idea  was  to  all  intents  and  purposes  a 
discovery  of  Christianity  is  conclusively  shown  by  the 
fact  that  never,  in  any  part  of  the  world  or  among 
any  race  of  men,  has  nature  provided  any  instinctive 
promptings  in  this  direction.  In  the  early  stages  of 
barbarism,  of  course,  man  was  little  better  than  an 
animal,  and  therefore  was  as  ruthless  and  bloodthirsty 
in  his  dealings  with  his  fellows  as  any  tiger  of  the 
jungle.  But  what  is  surprising  for  us  of  this  present 
day  to  discover  is  that,  even  in  well-ordered  and 


270  RELIGION  FOR  TO-DAY 

highly  developed  societies,  where  moral  principles  and 
spiritual  ideals  have  not  been  by  any  means  unrecog- 
nised, there  has  been  little  if  any  improvement  in  this 
direction.  Among  the  noblest  peoples  of  antiquity, 
as  also  among  some  of  our  own  ancestors  of  fairly 
recent  times,  the  wanton  and  indiscriminate  killing  of 
men  of  some  particular  class  or  nation  has  been  re- 
garded with  no  more  compunction  than  the  killing  of 
animals  in  the  chase.  The  Greeks,  who  built  the 
Parthenon,  and  carved  the  Apollo  Belvidere,  slaugh- 
tered the  "  barbarians,"  as  they  called  all  foreigners, 
whom  they  took  captive  in  battle,  with  the  same 
indifference  that  they  slaughtered  beasts  within  the 
shambles.  The  Romans  put  the  populations  of  con- 
quered cities  to  the  sword  without  a  thought,  killed 
their  slaves  like  so  much  vermin,  and  butchered 
gladiators  by  the  thousands  to  make  a  holiday.  And 
what  the  early  Spanish  conquerors  did  to  the  natives 
of  Mexico  and  Peru  cannot  be  told  upon  the  pages  of 
history,  for  the  very  horror  of  the  telling. 

Nor  is  it  only  the  baser  individuals  or  the  unthink- 
ing multitudes  who  have  been  thus  guilty  of  what  we 
would  regard  to-day  as  the  most  hideous  kind  of 
cruelty.  On  the  contrary,  the  best  men  of  the  times, 
those  who  in  all  other  respects  must  be  regarded  as 
conspicuous  for  their  humanity,  have  been  the  very 
ones  who  have  supported  the  violent  destruction  of 
human  life  and  themselves  oftentimes  engaged  in  the 
practice.  Thus  Samuel,  as  we  are  told,  was  outraged 
by  the  kindness  of  Saul  in  sparing  the  lives  of  the 


MAN:  AN  END,  NOT  A  MEANS         271 

captured  Agag  and  his  Amalekites,  and  himself  seized 
the  conqueror's  sword  and  "  hewed  Agag  in  pieces 
before  the  Lord."  Plato  described  infanticide,  or 
the  exposure  of  unwelcome  and  unfit  infants,  as  not 
only  a  defensible  but  a  commendable  practice.  Cato, 
"  the  noblest  Roman  of  them  all,"  always  got  rid  of 
his  aged  and  useless  slaves  by  selling  them  to  some 
slave-driver  who  was  willing  to  beat  the  last  few 
ounces  of  strength  out  of  their  wretched  bodies. 
Pliny,  the  scientist  and  philosopher,  applauded  the 
games  in  the  arena.  Titus,  a  gallant  soldier  and  per- 
haps the  most  high-minded  of  all  the  emperors  who 
sat  upon  the  throne  of  the  Roman  Empire  in  the 
first  century  after  Christ,  visited  so  perfect  a  venge- 
ance of  fire  and  sword  upon  the  helpless  inhabitants  of 
Jerusalem,  that  the  siege  of  the  holy  city  has  been 
remembered  from  that  day  to  this  as  one  of  the  most 
terrible  events  in  the  history  of  the  world.  The  fact 
is  that,  in  times  past  and  apart  from  the  influence  of 
Christianity,  human  life  has  never  been  regarded  as  in 
any  sense  sacred  and  therefore  in  itself  entitled  to 
protection.  When  the  pupil  of  Socrates  and  the 
writer  of  the  immortal  Dialogues  could  see  nothing 
wrong  in  the  taking  of  a  little  child  from  its  mother's 
arms  and  exposing  it  to  death  upon  some  bleak 
hillside,  it  may  not  be  regarded  as  surprising  that 
the  great  masses  of  mankind  have  been  slow  to  rise 
to  universal  standards  of  justice  and  compassion. 

Now,   the   advent   of   Christianity   was    remarkable 
for  no  one  thing  more  truly  than  the  absolute  break 


272  RELIGION  FOR  TO-DAY 

which  it  signalised  with  this  whole  attitude  of  the 
ancient  world  upon  the  question  of  regard  for  human 
life.  The  ancient  commandment,  "  Thou  shalt  not 
kill,"  was  now  interpreted  from  a  universal  point  of 
view  which  had  been  hitherto  unknown,  and  was  made 
to  apply  for  the  first  time  to  all  men  everywhere, 
regardless  of  race,  colour,  nationality,  or  condition. 
To  destroy  life  under  any  circumstances  or  for  any 
purpose  was  a  sin,  to  be  avoided  as  one  would  avoid 
the  plague.  In  accordance  with  this  sublime  con- 
viction, the  Christians  assailed  with  the  greatest 
courage  and  determination  many  of  those  extraordi- 
nary practices  which  are  now  regarded  as  so  hideous, 
but  which  were  very  generally  accepted  as  more  or 
less  praiseworthy  or  at  least  venial  by  the  society 
of  the  first  century  after  Christ,  and  were  never  seri- 
ously brought  into  disrepute  or  even  question  until 
the  advent  of  this  religious  movement.  Thus,  the 
Christians  denounced  the  practice  of  abortion  "  with 
unwavering  consistency  and  with  the  strongest  em- 
phasis." They  condemned  infanticide  as  an  unspeak- 
able enormity,  and  were  active  in  furnishing  shelter 
and  protection  to  abandoned  children.  They  swept 
away,  by  the  consuming  fire  of  their  hostility,  that 
crowning  shame  of  a  decadent  civilisation,  the  gladi- 
atorial games.  "  There  is  scarcely  any  single  reform 
so  important  in  the  moral  history  of  mankind," 
says  Mr.  Lecky,  in  his  History  of  European  Morals, 
"  as  the  suppression  of  the  gladiatorial  shows,  and 
this  feat  must  be  almost  exclusively  ascribed  to  the 


MAN:  AN  END,  NOT  A  MEANS         273 

Christian  church."  And  the  same  thing  must  be 
said  in  regard  to  the  emphatic  condemnation  by 
the  early  Christians  of  suicide.  Many  of  the  pagan 
moralists. were  opposed  to  the  act  of  self-destruction, 
and  argued  ably  and  untiringly  against  it.  But  the 
fact  remains  true,  none  the  less,  that  not  until  Chris- 
tianity appeared  with  the  reinforcement  of  its  power- 
ful message  of  the  sanctity  and  inviolability  of  the 
soul,  did  this  offence  come  to  be  regarded  with  that 
abhorrence  which  is  so  characteristic  of  Christian 
history. 

Against  all  such  cruel  practices  as  these  did  the 
Christian  movement  throw  the  whole  weight  of  its 
influence  in  these  primitive  days  of  its  organisation 
and  development.  Time  and  again  even  more  ex- 
treme positions  were  taken  in  antagonism  to  accepted 
custom.  Thus  many  Christians,  like  Tertullian  in 
the  second  century,  Origen  in  the  third  century, 
and  Lactantius  as  late  as  the  fourth  century,  taught 
the  unlawfulness  of  human  bloodshed  of  every  kind; 
and  those  who  followed  such  teaching,  and  they  were 
by  no  means  few,  resolutely  refused  to  take  up  arms 
as  soldiers,  to  serve  the  state  as  public  executioners, 
or  even  to  bring  a  capital  charge  against  an  offender. 
The  opinions  of  Christians,  however,  on  these  more 
delicate  questions,  were  not  unanimous;  and  it  must 
be  admitted,  with  however  much  reluctance,  that 
when  the  church  gained  supreme  ascendency  in  the 
latter  part  of  the  fourth  century,  it  speedily  retreated 
from  these  extreme  positions  of  its  more  consistent 


RELIGION  FOR  TO-DAY 

teachers,  which  were  so  hard  to  reconcile  with  existing 
conceptions  of  national  and  social  security.  Nay, 
more  than  this,  from  the  fatal  moment  of  its  triumph 
in  the  Roman  world,  the  whole  history  of  Christianity 
becomes  very  largely  the  pathetic  and  shameful  story 
of  the  church's  compromises  with  its  own  doctrine  of 
the  inviolability  of  human  life,  and  again  and  again  its 
betrayal  of  the  whole  idea.  Indeed,  it  seems  almost 
ridiculous  to  talk  about  Christianity  as  an  influence  in 
the  direction  of  safeguarding  human  life  from  wanton 
destruction,  when  we  think  of  Peter  the  Hermit 
preaching  the  first  crusade  against  the  Infidels  of  the 
East,  of  the  blind  Bishop  of  Paris  riding  into  the  battle 
of  Agincourt  with  his  mail-clad  body  lashed  to  his 
charger  and  his  battle-axe  bound  to  his  uplifted  hand, 
of  Pope  Innocent  III  forcing  the  slaughter  of  the 
Albigensian  peasantry  upon  the  unwilling  soldiers  of 
Philip  Augustus,  of  Torquemada  revelling  in  the  mon- 
strous horrors  of  the  Spanish  Inquisition,  which  is 
estimated  to  have  brought  death,  in  its  most  horrible 
forms,  to  no  less  than  350,000  men  and  women. 
Crusades,  holy  wars,  autos-da-fe,  persecutions,  heresy 
hunts  —  these  are  the  familiar  events  of  Christian 
history,  are  they  not?  And  they  are  the  very  things 
also,  are  they  not,  which  would  seem  to  convict 
Christianity,  above  all  other  organised  movements 
that  the  world  has  ever  known,  of  the  grievous  sin  of 
inhumanity?  "In  the  name  (of  this  religion),"  says 
that  sober  historian  and  literary  critic,  Mr.  John 
Morley,  "  more  human  blood  has  been  violently  shed 


MAN:  AN  END,  NOT  A  MEANS         275 

than  in  any  other  cause  whatsoever."  All  this  is 
lamentably  true!  And  yet  it  must  not  be  forgotten 
that  the  failure  of  the  practice  does  not  alter  in  the 
slightest  degree  the  power  and  the  promise  of  the 
preaching.  At  the  bottom,  the  gospel  of  Christ  empha- 
sises nothing  more  clearly  than  this  great  conception 
of  the  sanctity  of  human  life ;  and  from  this  there  fol- 
lows no  corollary  more  certain  than  that  of  the  in- 
violability of  human  life  from  wanton  outrage  and 
destruction.  In  the  beginning  of  its  history,  before 
the  era  of  its  worldly  conversion,  the  apostles  of  this 
gospel  lived  up  to  this  idea,  at  the  peril  always  of  cruel 
suffering  and  sometimes  of  cruel  death.  From  that 
day  down  to  our  own,  the  world  has  made  immeasur- 
able progress  away  from  the  callousness  and  cruelty 
of  ancient  times  to  the  quick  sensitiveness  and  sym- 
pathy of  our  own.  Things  which  were  done  with 
the  cordial  approval  of  the  best  men  of  Greece  and 
Rome  seem  now  so  terrible  as  to  be  literally  impossible. 
Things  which  are  done  to-day  for  the  safeguarding  of 
human  life  would  have  seemed  to  the  ancients  to  be 
examples  of  nothing  but  the  most  preposterous  kind  of 
sentimentality.  Only  in  such  perplexing  survivals  as 
lynching,  capital  punishment,  international  warfare, 
is  the  record  of  attainment  still  incomplete.  And  in 
seeking  out  the  various  influences  which  have  worked 
together  for  the  good  of  this  large  expansion  of  "  the 
quality  of  mercy,"  we  shall  find  none,  I  believe,  to 
be  rightly  more  conspicuous  than  this  original  and 
persistent  Christian  doctrine  of  the  sanctity  of  human 


276  RELIGION  FOR  TO-DAY 

life.  Again  there  comes  to  our  minds  the  immortal 
saying  of  the  Master,  which  has  never  been  wholly 
forgotten  or  ignored  even  in  the  darkest  ages  of  his- 
tory :  "  It  is  not  the  will  of  your  Father  which  is  in 
heaven  that  even  one  of  these  little  ones  should  perish." 
Here,  now,  is  one  of  the  inestimable  achievements 
which  is  to  be  credited  to  this  sublime  conception  of 
human  nature,  which  is  so  uniquely  characteristic  of 
Christianity.  No  sooner,  however,  do  we  realise 
how  far  the  world  has  gone  in  this  direction  of  safe- 
guarding human  life,  than  we  are  immediately  tempted 
to  wonder  as  to  why  it  has  not  gone  a  good  deal  farther. 
For  surely  we  have  very  little  imagination  if  we  believe 
that  death  is  the  only,  or  even  the  worst,  violation 
which  can  be  offered  to  the  sanctity  of  the  individual 
soul.  For  in  what  does  the  greatness  and  glory  of  the 
soul  consist,  if  not  in  those  spiritual  capacities  and 
powers  which  are  its  heritage  from  that  divine  and 
eternal  spirit,  with  which  it  is  related,  to  use  the 
familiar  figure  of  Jesus,  as  the  branches  are  related 
to  the  vine  ?  "  Every  human  being,"  says  Channing 
in  his  discourse  on  Slavery,  "  has  in  him  the  germ  of  the 
.  .  .  idea  of  God ;  and  to  unfold  this  is  the  end  of  his 
existence.  Every  human  being  has  in  his  breast  the 
elements  of  that  divine,  everlasting  law  ...  of  duty ; 
and  to  unfold,  revere,  obey  this,  is  the  very  purpose 
for  which  life  was  given.  Every  human  being  has  the 
idea  of  what  is  meant  by  truth,  .  .  .  and  is  capable 
of  ever-enlarging  perceptions  of  truth.  Every  human 
being  has  affections,  which  may  be  purified  and  ex- 


MAN:  AN  END,  NOT  A  MEANS          277 

panded  into  a  sublime  love."  "  Such,"  says  Channing, 
"  is  our  nature."  These  are  the  capacities  which 
distinguish  us  from  the  animals.  These  are  the 
qualities  which  make  us  worthy  to  be  called  the  sons 
of  God.  These  are  the  things  which  make  it  possible 
for  every  man,  as  their  possessor,  to  be  regarded  as  a 
being  of  infinite  worth  and  sanctity.  And  these  are 
the  very  capacities,  be  it  noted,  which,  because  of 
their  essentially  spiritual  nature,  can  be  destroyed  in 
far  other  ways  than  that  of  the  mere  killing  of  the 
body.  To  "  perish  "  in  the  sense  that  Jesus  used  the 
word,  is  not  merely  to  be  cut  off  before  the  Psalmist's 
span  of  threescore  years  and  ten  has  been  attained. 
To  die  before  one's  time  is  by  no  means  the  most 
dreadful  fate  which  one  can  meet.  Far  worse  than 
this  is  to  live  in  the  purely  physical  sense  of  the  term 
—  to  get  up  in  the  morning  and  to  go  to  bed  at  night, 
to  eat  and  sleep  and  work  and  strive  —  and  yet  to  be 
denied  any  opportunity  to  fulfil  those  higher  qualities 
of  the  spirit,  the  possession  of  which  constitutes  the 
whole  of  our  claim  to  manhood.  To  have  no  chance 
to  unfold  the  idea  of  God  within  the  soul,  to  revere  and 
obey  the  thought  of  duty,  to  know  truth  and  pursue  it, 
to  receive  love  and  bestow  it,  to  see  visions  and  dream 
dreams, 

"  To  strive,  to  seek,  to  find,  and  not  to  yield," 

to  have  no  chance  to  do  these  things,  which  are 
the  be-all  and  end-all  of  human  existence,  this  it  is  to 
perish!  And  he  who  denies  this  opportunity  of  spiri- 


278  RELIGION  FOR  TO-DAY 

tual  growth  and  attainment  to  "  even  the  least  "  among 
his  fellow-beings  is  guilty  of  outraging  and  destroying 
their  lives,  even  though  he  satisfies,  with  all  a  mother's 
tenderness  for  her  babe,  the  merely  material  demands 
of  physical  survival.  Not  for  nothing  did  Jesus  say, 
in  warning  to  his  disciples  as  they  set  forth  to  preach 
his  gospel  to  all  the  world,  "  Be  not  afraid  of  them  that 
kill  the  body,  .  .  .  but  rather  fear  him  who  is  able 
to  destroy  (the)  soul." 

Now  it  is  just  here,  in  this  necessary  extension  of 
the  great  principle  of  the  sanctity  of  human  life  from 
the  life  of  the  body  to  the  life  of  the  soul,  that  Christi- 
anity has  failed  most  conspicuously  to  fulfil  consist- 
ently and  courageously  its  own  gospel  of  redemption. 
The  most  notable  instance  of  this  failure  is  of  course 
to  be  found  in  the  abominable  institution  of  chattel 
slavery,  which  a  true  prophet  of  God,  like  John 
Wesley,  could  call  nothing  less  than  "  the  sum  of  all 
villanies,"  but  which  the  church,  in  its  organised 
capacity  at  least,  has  always  excused  and  frequently 
defended.  The  crime  of  slavery  was  not  to  be  found 
in  any  of  the  physical  sufferings  or  perils  which  were 
involved  in  this  system  of  enforced  labour.  The 
slaves  might  die  like  rats,  as  they  undoubtedly  did  on 
the  slave  ships  plying  between  Africa  and  the  home 
markets,  or  they  might  be  cared  for  and  protected 
with  the  greatest  consideration,  as  they  undoubtedly 
were  on  many  of  the  plantations  in  the  South  before 
the  war.  But  the  basic  iniquity  of  slavery  remained 
unaffected  in  either  way.  What  makes  this  institu- 


MAN:  AN  END,  NOT  A  MEANS         279 

tion  the  most  dreadful  that  human  history  has  ever 
known  and  what  has  banished  it  from  every  remotest 
nook  and  corner  of  the  civilised  world  to-day,  is  the 
fact  that  the  ownership  of  one  man  by  another  denies 
to  the  first  man  the  opportunity  to  live  his  own  life,  to 
develop  his  own  powers,  to  realise  the  hopes  and  faiths 
of  his  own  soul.  A  human  being,  by  virtue  of  these 
very  attributes  of  the  soul  which  distinguish  him  as  a 
human  being,  is  plainly  destined  to  obey  a  law  within 
himself.  "  He  was  made  for  his  own  virtue  and  happi- 
ness." He  was  equipped  for  the  fulfilment  of  his 
own  desires  and  ambitions.  He  is  a  person  and  not  a 
thing,  by  which  we  mean  that  he  is  an  end  in  himself, 
and  not  a  mere  instrument  or  means  to  some  other  end 
unrelated  to  himself.  And  now  are  all  these  personal 
rights,  which  belong  to  a  man  as  a  moral  being,  stolen 
from  him  by  this  institution  of  which  he  is  made  the 
helpless  victim.  No  longer  can  he  think  his  own 
thoughts  and  manifest  his  own  emotions.  No  longer 
can  he  gratify  his  own  desires  or  seek  attainment 
of  his  own  ends.  No  longer  can  he  have  a  place 
in  the  sun  for  the  building  of  his  own  great  city 
of  the  light.  He  cannot  will,  he  cannot  love,  he 
cannot  even  lift  his  voice.  He  belongs  to  another, 
like  a  tool  or  a  beast  of  burden.  He  is  owned, 
used,  and  at  last  worn  out  for  another's  work 
and  another's  purposes.  "  Plainly  .  .  .  made  to 
exercise,  unfold,  improve  his  highest  powers,  made 
for  a  moral  and  spiritual  good,"  made  to  be  an  end  in 
himself  for  the  creative  energy  of  God,  he  is  degraded 


280  RELIGION  FOR  TO-DAY. 

from  his  high  rank  in  the  universe  of  the  spirit,  and 
made  to  serve  as  an  instrument  or  means  for  the  use 
of  another  no  better  than  himself.  Is  not  this  "  per- 
ishing "  of  the  worst  description?  Could  any  mere 
physical  extinction  more  utterly  outrage  and  destroy 
a  man  than  this  life  which  is  no  life?  Is  not  Channing 
right  when  he  declares  that  this  death  in  life  "  is  the 
greatest  violence  which  can  be  offered  to  any  creature 
of  God  "  ? 

So  obvious  is  the  attack  upon  the  sanctity  of 
human  life  which  is  involved  in  the  institution  of 
slavery,  that  nowhere  in  the  modern  world  can  there 
be  found  anybody  so  mean  as  to  do  it  reverence. 
But  everywhere  in  the  modern  world  can  there  be 
found  institutions  which  embody  exactly  this  same 
principle  of  reducing  a  man  from  an  end  in  himself 
to  a  means  toward  some  other  end.  which  has  long 
since  made  chattel  slavery  so  odious.  All  around  us 
men  are  perishing  not  in  body  but  in  soul,  because  of 
the  stupidity,  the  selfishness,  the  injustice  of  individual 
men  or  of  social  systems. 

Take,  for  example,  our  whole  method  of  handling 
prisoners  and  prisons !  Here  is  a  man  who  comes 
before  a  court  for  trial  for  some  offence  against  the 
law.  The  very  fact  that  he  is  here  in  the  dock  proves 
that  he  is  ignorant,  and  needs  instruction;  or  that  he 
is  physically  diseased  or  mentally  deficient,  and  needs 
individual  attention;  or  that  he  has  faults  of  temper, 
and  needs  moral  correction ;  or  that  he  is  the  victim  of 
a  bad  environment,  and  needs  the  uplifting  influences 


MAN:  AN  END,  NOT  A  MEANS         281 

of  good  surroundings.  Instead  of  diagnosing  his  case 
as  we  would  diagnose  the  case  of  any  applicant  at  the 
clinic  of  a  hospital,  we  put  this  man  on  trial  from  the 
standpoint  not  of  his  condition  but  of  the  facts  of  his 
wrongdoing;  and  then,  if  he  be  declared  guilty,  we 
at  once  proceed  to  rob  him  of  all  the  rights  and  privi- 
leges of  his  manhood  by  shutting  him  up  in  a  cage  like 
a  wild  beast  and  chaining  him  to  a  work-bench  like  a 
slave.  From  the  moment  he  enters  the  walls  of  the 
prison,  to  which  he  is  doomed,  he  ceases  to  be  an  end 
in  himself  and  becomes  a  means  to  some  other  end 
which  he  does  not  see  and  cannot  understand.  He  is 
stripped  of  his  outward  marks  of  personal  identifica- 
tion so  effectively  that,  for  example,  when  Mr.  Thomas 
Mott  Osborne  went  to  Auburn  Prison  for  a  week,  he 
was  twice  able  to  pass  the  inspection  of  some  of  his 
closest  friends  and  associates  without  being  recognised. 
He  is  denied  all  the  ordinary  and  necessary  expressions 
of  personality  —  he  cannot  talk,  suggest  ideas,  write  a 
letter  or  receive  a  letter  save  at  inhuman  intervals, 
take  spontaneous  exercise  in  the  open  air,  make 
friendships  and  pledge  loyalties.  He  is  robbed  of  all 
privileges  of  personal  convenience  and  habit,  and 
ruthlessly  fitted  into  the  unvarying  routine  of  a 
prescribed  system  of  life.  In  his  eating,  sleeping, 
waking,  walking,  working,  he  is  reduced  to  the  con- 
dition of  a  mere  automaton.  He  labours,  but  it  is  for 
the  state  without  decent  recompense  or  reward.  He 
breathes,  but  it  is  at  the  convenience  and  on  the  terms 
of  the  warden  and  his  officers.  We  take  the  offender, 


RELIGION  FOR  TO-DAY 

who  is  shown  by  his  crime  to  be  lacking  in  certain 
essential  qualities  of  character,  and  then,  instead  of 
nourishing  the  few  qualities  that  he  has,  and  adding 
to  them  others  that  he  knows  not  of  by  judicious  and 
humane  processes  of  education,  scientific  training,  and 
personal  influence,  we  proceed  to  do  all  we  can  to 
destroy  the  few  rags  and  tatters  of  personal  initiative, 
moral  freedom,  and  spiritual  idealism  that  still  show 
him  to  be  a  man.  We  strip  him  of  the  inherent  right 
of  his  God-given  manhood  to  be  regarded  and  treated 
as  a  divinely  precious  end  in  himself,  and  we  reduce 
him  to  the  degrading  position  of  being  a  means  to  the 
attainment  of  our  profit,  our  security,  and  our  peculiar 
whims  of  right  and  wrong  —  with  the  result  pointed 
out  by  Oscar  Wilde  in  unforgettable  phrase  in  his 
Ballad  of  Reading  Gaol: 

"  The  vilest  deeds,  like  prison  weeds, 
Bloom  well  in  prison  air, 
It  is  only  what  is  good  in  Man 
That  wastes  and  withers  there." 

Again,  as  another  illustration  of  this  violation  of 
the  sanctity  of  the  individual  soul  by  degrading  a  man 
to  the  position  of  a  mere  instrument  or  tool,  take  the 
present  system  of  industry  which  prevails  the  world 
around.  There  was  a  time,  and  it  was  not  so  very 
long  ago  as  centuries  are  numbered,  that  a  workman 
could  find  in  his  handiwork  food  for  his  soul  and  joy 
for  his  heart.  This  article  which  he  produced  was  a 
permanent  monument  to  the  skill  of  his  hands  and 


MAN:  AN  END,  NOT  A  MEANS         283 

the  fertility  of  his  brain.  It  was  his  in  the  sense  that 
the  canvas  was  the  painter's  and  the  statue  was  the 
sculptor's.  It  might  be  the  humblest  object  imagin- 
able —  a  shoe,  a  coat,  a  chair,  a  table-spoon  —  but  into 
it  went  his  life,  and  through  it  was  his  "  apology " 
spoken  to  the  world.  Those  were  the  days  when 
humble  builders  made  the  cathedral  at  Rheims,  when 
unknown  wood-carvers  reared  the  Hotel  de  Ville  at 
Louvain,  when  forgotten  weavers  produced  the 
tapestries  of  France.  Those  were  the  days  when  Hans 
Sachs  sang  his  Meister-songs  as  he  cobbled  at  his 
bench,  when  Josiah  Wedgewood  won  immortality  in 
his  pottery,  and  Robert  Collyer  smote  with  joy  the 
glowing  horseshoe  upon  his  anvil. 

But  all  this  has  now  gone  by  with  the  coming  of  the 
factory  and  the  establishment  of  the  wage  system  of 
employment.  To-day  the  typical  worker  rises  at  the 
blowing  of  the  factory  whistle  —  trudges  to  his  place 
by  the  great  machine,  where  he  makes  some  thou- 
sandth part  of  a  finished  article  which  he  never  sees  — 
toils  amid  dirt  and  noise  through  nine  or  ten  hours  of 
the  weary  day  —  and  then  at  the  fall  of  darkness  takes 
himself  homeward  to  his  wretched  tenement,  ex- 
hausted and  dispirited.  On  Saturday  night  he  counts 
over  his  wages,  and  finds  just  enough  money  to  keep 
rude  fare  upon  his  table  and  a  roof  over  the  heads  of 
himself  and  his  family,  with  scarce  a  penny  over  for 
recreation,  the  visitation  of  illness,  or  the  long  weeks 
of  unemployment.  Day  in  and  day  out,  year  in  and 
year  out,  he  labours  at  his  monotonous  and  soul-killing 


284  RELIGION  FOR  TO-DAY 

task,  until  old  age  reduces  him  to  pauperism  or  the 
care  of  his  overburdened  children,  and  death  at  last 
releases  him  from  the  prison  chamber  of  the  world. 
Thus  do  tens  and  hundreds  of  thousands  of  men  and 
women  spend  their  days  —  mere  cogs  in  the  great 
machines  of  industry,  mere  tools  for  the  doing  of  the 
work  from  which  other  men  make  their  profits,  mere 
instruments  or  means  for  the  realisation  of  that  remote 
end  of  creating  and  piling  up  wealth,  of  which  they  are 
forever  forbidden  to  have  a  share.  It  is  amusing  to 
talk  of  slavery  being  dead  —  as  though  the  marks  of 
slavery  were  the  chain-gang,  the  auction-block,  the 
overseer's  whip.  Slavery  exists  wherever  men  are 
bound  to  tasks  which  are  not  their  own,  wherever  they 
receive  no  equable  share  of  the  wealth  which  they 
create,  wherever  they  go  and  come,  sleep  and  wake, 
are  employed  or  unemployed,  according  as  another 
man  may  decide.  Look  at  the  thousands  of  little 
children  who  labour  every  day  in  mine  and  factory,  at 
the  cost  of  health,  knowledge,  and  sound  morals  — 
look  at  the  hundreds  of  thousands  of  women  who  rush 
to  the  sweatshops,  in  order  that  their  homes  may  not 
be  snatched  from  them  and  their  children  starved  — 
look  at  the  millions  of  men  who  labour  for  a  lifetime 
and  never  have  a  piece  of  handicraft  or  even  a  piece 
of  money  to  keep  as  their  reward.  How  many  of  these 
multitudes  of  workers  are  living  their  lives  as  they 
would  like  to  live  them?  How  many  of  them  are 
satisfying  any  of  the  hunger  of  their  hearts  or  reaching 
to  any  of  the  visions  of  their  souls?  How  many  of 


MAN:  AN  END,  NOT  A  MEANS 

them  are  "  ends  "  in  the  sense  defined  by  Channing  that 
they  fulfil  "the  fundamental  law  of  (human)  nature 
that  all  (their)  powers  are  to  be  improved  by  free 
exertion  "  ?  Are  they  not  all  slaves  and  puppets  and 
beasts  of  burden?  Are  they  not  all  living  a  life  which 
spiritually  is  death?  Are  they  not  all  being  sacrificed 
as  means  to  such  extra-human  ends  as  business, 
profits,  industrial  prosperity,  wealth?  We  think  it 
terrible  when  we  look  back  to  the  days  of  Greece  and 
Rome,  that  Plato  could  commend  infanticide,  and 
Aristotle  abortion,  and  Pliny  the  gladiatorial  games. 
But  as  sure  as  progress  is  progress,  and  enlighten- 
ment enlightenment,  that  day  is  coming  when  our  de- 
scendants will  look  back  upon  these  days  and  marvel 
that  we  could  not  see  the  abomination  of  the  industrial 
conditions  of  wage-hire! 

And  right  here,  let  me  point  out,  in  this  fundamental 
distinction  between  man  as  an  end  and  man  as  a  means, 
do  we  also  find  what  will  some  day  be  recognised  as 
the  unanswerable  indictment  of  war  as  a  method  of 
settling  disputes  between  the  nations  of  the  world. 
That  men  are  slaughtered  on  the  battlefield  is  not  the 
first  nor  yet  the  last  argument  against  war.  This 
phase  of  the  tragedy  is  terrible,  of  course.  But  there 
has  never  been  a  time  when  men  have  not  been  willing 
to  die  for  the  sake  of  some  great  cause,  and  death 
under  such  circumstances  is  an  easy  as  well  as  a 
glorious  thing. 

What  makes  war  horrible  and,  as  I  would  put  it, 
inexcusable,  is  the  gathering  up  of  unnumbered  mil- 


286  RELIGION  FOR  TO-DAY 

lions  of  men,  by  tyrants  who  have  dynastic  ends  to 
serve  or  governments  which  have  foolish  and  immoral 
alliances  to  maintain,  and  the  hurling  of  them  into  the 
battle  like  so  much  shot  and  shell,  without  asking  their 
consent  and  for  the  sake  of  no  cause  with  which  they 
can  have  the  slightest  connection.  That  men  should 
serve  as  so  many  swords  in  the  hands  of  kings  in  the 
days  when  infanticide  was  practised  and  captives 
slain  in  cold  blood,  is  understandable.  But  that  men 
should  be  similarly  degraded  to  a  level  with  guns  and 
bayonets  in  this  enlightened  age,  well-nigh  passes 
comprehension.  And  yet  it  is  only  sober  truth  to  say 
that  this  kind  of  degradation  is  more  universal  in  our 
time  than  even  in  the  darkest  days  of  Rome  and  the 
Middle  Ages.  Think  of  the  systems  of  conscription 
in  vogue  for  a  generation  past  in  Germany,  France, 
Russia,  and  Austria,  which  have  forced  grown  men  to 
leave  their  places  in  the  university,  or  at  the  work- 
bench, or  in  the  home,  and  prostitute  themselves  to 
two  or  three  years  of  marching  on  the  drilling  fields 
and  standing  guard  in  the  barracks !  Think  of  the 
system  which  made  it  possible  for  the  governors  of  the 
European  nations  to  call  every  man  to  the  colours  on 
the  first  days  of  August,  1914,  and  fire  them  into  the 
battle  with  as  little  consideration  as  you  would  feel 
in  firing  a  bullet  from  your  musket.  Right  here 
is  the  crowning  indictment  of  war  as  it  is  being 
fought  to-day  —  that  men  are  degraded  to  the  posi- 
tion of  mere  instruments  to  serve  the  pride  of  kings 
and  repair  the  blunders  of  statesmen  —  that  they  are 


MAN:  AN  END,  NOT  A  MEANS         287 

reduced  to  the  level  of  mere  shot  and  shell  —  that  they 
are  torn  from  their  families,  robbed  of  their  brains, 
stiffened  up  like  ramrods,  decked  out  in  the  sham 
finery  of  uniforms,  tied  to  their  fellows  by  the  bonds 
of  discipline  as  puppets  are  tied  together  by  leading 
strings,  and  thus  manufactured  into  a  war-machine  at 
the  cost  of  every  human  capacity  that  makes  them  to 
be  men  and  not  things.  Whether  a  soldier  is  slain  in 
battle  or  survives,  is  of  little  moment,  from  this  point 
of  view  of  the  essential  sanctity  of  his  spirit.  The 
thing  to  be  noted  is  that  he  has  been  robbed  of  his  man- 
hood, that  he  has  perished  as  a  human  being,  an  immor- 
tal son  of  God,  long  before  his  carcass  has  been  shot 
to  pieces  in  the  trenches. 

And  so  the  illustrations  of  our  modern  violations  of 
the  sanctity  of  human  life  might  be  multiplied.  But 
surely  my  point  must  by  now  be  clear.  Does  it  not 
all  come  down  to  the  simple  fact  that  we  have  a  per- 
verted viewpoint  —  that  we  are  still  in  the  position 
of  the  old  Romans  of  recognising  certain  ends  as  more 
important  than  certain  men,  and  of  feeling  justified 
therefore  in  sacrificing  human  life  to  these  ends  as  the 
ancients  sacrificed  meat  to  idols?  We  do  not  kill  men, 
to  be  sure.  Our  way  is  more  refined  —  we  simply  use 
them  as  tools  or  weapons.  But  the  result  is  exactly 
the  same.  Property,  social  discipline,  pleasure,  con- 
venience, national  interest,  royal  pride,  these  are  ex- 
alted as  the  chief  ends  of  existence,  and  man  is  de- 
graded as  a  mere  means  for  the  attainment  of  these 
ends.  The  body,  in  accordance  with  our  greater  ten- 


288  RELIGION  FOR  TO-DAY 

derness  these  days,  is  saved  from  destruction,  but  the 
soul  is  slaughtered  without  compunction.  The  perish- 
ing, in  other  words,  which  Jesus  said  it  was  not  the 
will  of  our  Father  which  is  in  heaven  that  "  even  the 
least  "  of  men  should  suffer,  still  goes  on ! 

Hence  the  need  of  a  deeper  understanding  of  the 
Christian  Gospel,  and  a  more  consistent  application 
of  its  ideals.  Hence  the  need  of  a  spiritual  awakening 
which  will  teach  us  to  safeguard  human  life  from  being 
used,  as  early  Christianity  taught  the  Romans  to  safe- 
guard human  life  from  being  killed.  At  the  heart  of  it 
all  is  the  necessity  of  learning  that  life  is  alone  sacred 
—  that  the  only  thing  that  matters  in  this  world  is  the 
soul  —  that  man  must  be  exalted  and  served  even  though 
all  else  be  denied  or  perish.  We  can  spare  wealth, 
property,  nations,  but  we  cannot  spare  men.  From  the 
least  even  unto  the  greatest,  they  must  be  saved! 

The  truth  that  I  would  convey  is  beautifully  expressed 
in  the  story  of  David  and  the  well  of  Bethlehem.  This 
well  was  in  the  hands  of  the  Philistines.  Overhearing 
King  David  express  a  wish  for  some  water  from  the 
fountain,  "  three  mighty  men  broke  through  the  host  of 
the  Philistines,  drew  water  out  of  the  well,  and  brought 
it  to  David,"  that  he  might  drink.  But  David,  we  are 
told,  would  not  touch  it,  for  to  do  so  would  be  to 
confess  that  he  had  a  right  to  use  these  men  as  the 
instruments  of  his  pleasure  —  as  means  to  the  service 
of  his  ends.  "Shall  I  drink  the  blood  of  men?"  he 
asked.  And  he  gave  answer  by  pouring  out  the  water 
upon  the  ground. 


THE  GOD  OF  BATTLES,  OR  THE  RELIGION 
OF  WAR 

THERE  is  no  circumstance  of  the  Great  War  in  Eu- 
rope which  is  more  interesting  than  the  fact  that,  in 
all  the  various  countries  involved,  the  organised  forces 
of  religion  are  actively  engaged  in  the  prosecution  of 
the  conflict.  It  is  not  too  much  to  say  that  this  war 
is  in  many  ways  a  religious  war.  Go  into  any  of  the 
churches  on  a  Sunday  morning,  in  England,  Germany, 
or  France,  and  you  will  be  asked  to  join  in  fervent 
prayers  for  the  triumph  of  the  national  armies  in  the 
field,  and  of  course,  as  a  natural  consequence,  for  the 
defeat  and  destruction  of  the  armies  of  the  enemy.  Go 
into  some  of  these  churches  as  in  England  for  example, 
and  you  will  find  the  parish  houses  turned  into  munition 
factories,  and  the  boys  and  girls  busily  at  work,  under 
the  leadership  of  their  ministers,  in  making  weapons  for 
the  soldiers.  Go  to  the  front,  as  in  Russia  for  example, 
and  there  you  will  see  at  the  head  of  every  regiment,  as 
it  advances  into  battle,  a  priest  of  the  church,  bearing 
a  crucifix  in  one  hand  and  an  ikon  in  the  other.  Espe- 
cially in  Germany  have  the  practices  of  religion  been 
made  an  important  function  of  the  military  life.  Every 
Sunday  the  soldiers  are  marshalled  in  the  churches, 
or  if  necessary  in  the  open  fields,  for  formal  services 
of  worship.  Every  morning  and  evening,  in  barracks 
and  in  camp,  prayers  are  solemnly  read  by  officers  or 

289 


290  RELIGION  FOR  TO-DAY 

chaplains.  Each  soldier  is  carefully  provided  with  a 
little  handbook  of  private  devotions.  And  when  al- 
together they  march  into  battle,  the  psalms  of  Luther 
are  on  their  lips  and  the  God  of  the  Fatherland  is  in 
their  hearts.  Certainly,  in  so  far  as  religion  can  be 
made  to  take  its  place  and  play  its  part  as  a  vital 
factor  in  a  great  war,  it  is  not  failing  to  do  so  in  this 
present  conflict.  From  pleas  of  national  defence  and 
self-preservation,  the  Great  War  in  the  early  days 
very  rapidly  swept  on  to  the  justification  of  lofty  prin- 
ciples of  liberty,  democracy,  and  brotherhood.  And 
now,  in  these  later  stages  of  the  strife,  it  has  advanced 
to  the  out-and-out  basis  of  religious  idealism.  Saints 
are  appearing  on  the  battlefield;  miracles  are  being 
worked  by  the  spirits  of  the  unf orgotten  dead ;  Jesus  is 
being  hailed  as  the  friend  of  violence;  and  God  every- 
where invoked  as  the  inspirer  and  guardian  of  the 
faithful.  Religion  is  in  the  air.  The  cross,  like  the 
crescent,  is  the  symbol  of  bloodshed  and  conquest. 
Not  since  the  crusaders  marshalled  their  hosts  at  the 
call  of  Peter  the  Hermit,  and  marched  away  in  the  name 
of  God  to  wrest  the  Holy  Sepulchre  from  the  profaning 
hand  of  the  Infidel,  has  the  world  been  called  upon  to 
witness  so  startling  a  manifestation  of  spiritual  en- 
thusiasm in  the  field  of  war. 

Now  to  many  persons  this  identification  of  religion 
with  the  dread  work  of  destruction  and  death  which 
is  now  proceeding  in  Europe,  is  a  fact  which  goes  far 
toward  relieving  the  situation  of  its  horror.  Some 
persons,  indeed,  are  so  impressed  with  the  religious 


THE  GOD  OF  BATTLES  291 

character  of  the  war,  that  they  have  been  tempted  to 
regard  the  conflict  as  primarily  a  blessing  and  not  a 
curse.  It  was  from  this  point  of  view  that  one  of  my 
colleagues  in  New  York,  last  year,  described  the  war 
as  the  greatest  blessing  that  the  world  has  seen  since 
the  Protestant  Reformation.  It  was  from  this  same 
point  of  view  that  another  of  my  colleagues,  at  a 
somewhat  later  time,  pictured  the  event  as  a  supreme 
instance  of  good  and  not  of  ill.  Prior  to  the  outbreak 
of  hostilities,  these  ministers  argue,  the  world  was  given 
over  to  the  cult  of  materialism.  The  old  motives  were 
forgotten,  the  old  standards  neglected,  the  old  ideals 
lost.  The  lust  of  wealth,  the  indulgence  of  the  flesh,  the 
pursuit  of  pleasure  and  ease  —  these  were  the  chief 
ends  of  man  in  the  first  decade  of  the  present  century. 
And  coupled  with  these  ends  was  an  indifference  to 
fundamentals,  a  contempt  of  ancient  sanctities,  which 
threatened  a  rapid  dissolution  of  the  intellectual  and 
spiritual  integrity  of  the  race.  Then,  with  the  shock 
of  an  earthquake,  came  the  war  —  and  men  awoke  once 
again  to  the  realities  which  they  had  so  long  forgotten 
or  defied.  Life  all  at  once  was  plunged  into  depths 
which  it  had  not  sounded  for  generations.  At  the  same 
time  was  it  lifted  to  heights  which  the  souls  of  living 
men  had  never  seen,  and  much  less  scaled.  The  ordi- 
nary business  of  existence  became  suddenly  trivial  — 
the  ordinary  possessions  of  men's  hands  of  no  concern. 
The  peril  that  rode  on  every  wind,  the  death  that  walked 
on  every  street,  the  sorrow  that  knocked  on  every  door 
—  these  were  the  things  that  counted!  And,  behold! 


292  RELIGION  FOR  TO-DAY 

as  by  some  new  and  strange  baptism  of  the  spirit,  men 
remembered  God,  and  turned  to  him  with  one  accord  for 
guidance  and  protection.  The  very  horror  of  this  war, 
we  are  being  told  on  every  hand,  has  brought  its  certain 
compensation  in  a  rebirth  of  the  religious  conscious- 
ness. The  souls  of  men,  after  far  wanderings  in  the 
wilderness  of  materialism,  have  found  Sinai,  and  seek 
again  the  holy  presence  which  comes  only  in  the  flame 
of  lightning  and  the  crash  of  thunder. 

Now  that  there  is  much  truth  in  this  interpretation 
of  the  European  situation,  goes  without  saying.  Mil- 
lions of  men  and  women,  in  all  the  belligerent  coun- 
tries, are  undoubtedly  living  more  deeply  and  cer- 
tainly more  terribly  than  they  have  ever  lived  before. 
Thousands  of  men  and  women  are  facing  reality  for 
the  first  time,  and  by  this  experience  being  moved  to 
unfamiliar  emotion  and  activity.  But  to  identify  this 
awakening  of  the  human  spirit,  under  the  dreadful 
stimulus  of  war,  with  religion  in  the  true  sense  of  that 
word,  and  to  declare  that  in  the  agony  and  passion 
which  are  now  tearing  the  souls  of  men  in  France, 
Belgium,  Germany  and  Russia,  we  see  a  genuine  expres- 
sion of  the  spiritual  life,  is  to  my  mind  an  opinion 
which  is  as  preposterous  as  it  is  cruel.  That  there  is 
a  religion  of  war,  I  have  no  doubt.  That  this  religion 
of  war  has  been  stirred  within  men's  hearts  to-day  as 
it  has  not  been  stirred  in  many  centuries,  I  am  reason- 
ably certain.  But  that  this  religion  has  anything  to  do 
with  the  religion  of  Jesus  and  his  fellow-prophets  — 
that  it  has  any  connection  with  the  spiritual  idealism 


THE  GOD  OF  BATTLES  293 

which  is  the  end  and  aim  of  our  faltering  endeavours 
in  times  of  peace  —  that  it  is  a  renaissance  of  the  soul 
which  is  to  be  welcomed  as  a  blessing  to  mankind  —  all 
this  I  would  most  emphatically  deny.  In  the  prayers 
and  praises  of  this  war,  we  see  not  the  sudden  overthrow 
of  the  materialism,  immorality,  indulgence  of  the  peace- 
ful years  preceding  the  great  cataclysm.  On  the  con- 
trary, in  the  blindness  of  these  prayers,  in  the  madness 
of  these  praises,  we  see  the  triumph  and  apotheosis  of 
this  very  corruption  of  the  spirit  which  we  have  so 
long  been  deploring.  This  war  marks  not  the  recovery 
of  men's  souls,  but  their  collapse.  It  shows  not  the 
revival  but  the  loss  of  religion.  It  means  not  the  dis- 
covery but  the  abandonment  of  God.  Men  are  calling 
upon  God,  to  be  sure,  as  they  have  not  called  for  gen- 
erations. But  it  is  the  God  of  Battles  whom  they 
seek.  And  this  God  of  Battles,  let  me  tell  you,  is  a 
deity  who  is  as  alien  to  true  religion  as  that  other  pagan 
monster  known  as  Mammon,  whose  worship  by  mankind 
has  for  so  long  been  the  despair  and  degradation  of 
our  times. 

In  order  to  see  how  different  is  this  religion  of  war 
from  all  that  we  imply  by  religion  in  the  accurate 
meaning  of  that  great  word,  let  us  compare  the  spirit- 
ual ideas  and  ideals  of  men  to-day,  as  they  live  under 
the  stress  and  strain  of  battle,  with  these  same  ideas 
and  ideals  as  they  appear  in  the  normal  experiences  of 
men,  and  especially  as  they  have  been  built  up  in  the 
dreams  and  visions  of  the  great  prophets  of  the  race. 

Take,  in  the  first  place,  our  idea  of  God!     At  the 


294  RELIGION  FOR  TO-DAY 

very  heart  of  this  idea  lies  the  conception  of  a  deity 
who  is  the  universal  Father  of  mankind.  Very  clear  in 
the  minds  of  men,  for  ages  past,  has  been  the  thought 
of  God  as  an  all-pervasive  presence  in  the  physical 
universe.  "Whither  shall  I  go  from  thy  spirit," 
asks  the  Psalmist,  in  one  of  the  noblest  religious  poems 
ever  conceived  by  the  human  mind,  "  or  whither  shall  I 
flee  from  thy  presence.  If  I  ascend  up  into  heaven, 
thou  art  there;  if  I  make  my  bed  in  the  grave,  behold, 
thou  art  there.  If  I  take  the  wings  of  the  morning  and 
dwell  in  the  uttermost  parts  of  the  sea,  even  there  shall 
thy  hand  lead  me,  and  thy  right  hand  shall  hold  me." 
There  was  a  time  when  different  gods,  not  only  for 
every  country,  but  every  mountain,  every  river,  every 
tree,  occupied  the  imaginations  of  men's  hearts.  But 
little  by  little  these  multitudinous  deities  were  all  merged 
into  the  one  God  whose  presence  is  as  high  as  heaven,  as 
deep  as  hell,  and  as  wide  as  the  swinging  orbits  of  the 
stars.  And  along  with  this  conception  of  the  one 
God  of  a  universal  creation  has  come  as  well  the  twin 
conception  of  the  one  Father  of  a  universal  humanity. 
Men  stand  before  many  altars,  and  offer  many  prayers 
in  many  languages.  Their  practices  of  worship  are  as 
different  as  their  habits  of  daily  life.  If  names  are 
to  be  trusted,  a  new  god,  like  a  new  king,  must  be 
recognised  and  worshipped  with  the  crossing  of  every 
boundary  line  between  land  and  land.  But  names  and 
prayers  and  ceremonies  we  know  to  be  mere  illusions. 
In  the  hearts  of  men,  as  in  the  wide  spaces  of  the  heav- 
ens, there  is  but  one  God,  and  to  him  and  him  alone  are 


THE  GOD  OF  BATTLES  295 

offered  the  prayers  of  northern  Esquimaux  and  southern 
black,  of  Chinese  and  Indian,  of  Teuton  and  Slav.  St. 
Paul  has  given  immortal  expression  to  this  supreme  idea 
of  one  universal  deity,  in  his  letter  to  the  Ephesians, 
where  he  speaks  of  "  one  Lord,  one  faith,  one  baptism, 
one  God  and  Father  of  all,  who  is  over  all,  and  through 
all,  and  in  all." 

Now  this  idea  of  the  "  one  God  and  Father  of  all," 
which  constitutes  the  essence  of  what  we  mean  by 
religion  in  its  best  and  highest  estate,  is  the  very  idea 
which  finds  no  place  in  the  religion  of  war.  The  uni- 
versal Father,  who  is  so  near  to  all  our  hearts  in  the 
blessed  days  of  "  peace  on  earth,  goodwill  toward  men," 
disappears  when  the  call  to  arms  is  sounded;  and  in 
his  place  appears  the  dread  God  of  Battles.  Nay,  there 
appears  not  one  God  but  many  gods  —  for  this  God  of 
Battles,  let  it  be  noted  with  all  care,  has  as  many  differ- 
ent persons  as  there  are  different  countries  engaged  in 
the  strife  of  war.  Such  conflict  as  is  now  being  waged 
in  Europe,  in  other  words,  means  not  only  a  loss  of  all 
that  we  mean  by  the  great  doctrine  of  the  Fatherhood  of 
God,  but  an  immediate  reversion  to  the  swarming  poly- 
theisms of  the  ancient  days  of  barbarism.  Nobody  can 
look  at  Germany  and  Russia  and  France  at  this  mo- 
ment, for  example,  without  seeing  in  the  religious  life 
of  these  contending  nations  a  recrudescence  of  those 
various  tribal  deities  which  once  characterised  the  re- 
ligious faiths  of  men.  Just  as  Jehovah,  in  the  history 
of  Israel,  was  the  God  not  of  men  in  general  but  of  the 
Israelites  in  particular,  and  every  nation  against  which 


296  RELIGION  FOR  TO-DAY 

the  Israelites  waged  war  had  its  own  particular  deity, 
like  Dagon  of  the  Philistines,  Chemosh  of  the  Moabites, 
Bel  of  the  Babylonians,  so  the  God  worshipped  by  the 
French,  we  will  say,  is  the  God  not  of  humanity  but  of 
France,  and  the  enemies  whom  France  is  fighting  are 
serving  other  and  alien  gods.  Each  nation,  to  be  sure, 
pretends  to  be  worshipping  the  "  one  God  and  Father 
of  all  " —  there  is  no  open  recognition  of  a  distinctively 
national  or  tribal  deity.  "  All  pray  to  the  same  God," 
said  Abraham  Lincoln,  in  his  Second  Inaugural  Ad- 
dress ;  "  the  prayers  of  both  cannot  be  answered."  But 
the  point  to  be  noted  is,  that  each  nation  approaches 
God  and  prays  to  God,  as  though  God  were  its  own 
peculiar  possession,  and  had  its  interests  and  not  the 
interests  of  humanity  very  particularly  at  heart.  All 
of  which  means,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  that  the  one  God 
and  Father  of  men  has  been  lost  from  out  men's  hearts, 
and  in  his  place  has  appeared  a  throng  of  deities,  each 
one  of  which  is  the  enemy  of  all  the  others!  There 
is  war  in  heaven,  as  well  as  on  the  earth.  The  Germans, 
as  the  most  thorough-going  of  all  the  belligerent  peo- 
ples, give  us  the  clearest  idea  of  this  reversion,  under 
the  degrading  stimulus  of  war,  to  the  worship  of  tribal 
gods.  They  seem  to  believe,  with  an  astonishing  kind 
of  consistency,  that  they  have  a  monopoly  of  God  — 
that  God  is  limiting  his  love  and  guardianship  to  the 
German  people  —  that  God  has  set  up  the  Kaiser  as  a 
kind  of  vice-regent  of  the  Most  High  to  conquer  and 
rule  the  world.  This  is  certainly  the  view  of  Wilhelm 
II,  if  not  of  all  his  subjects.  "  We  Hohenzollerns,"  he 


THE  GOD  OF  BATTLES  297 

has  said  more  than  once,  "  take  our  crown  from  God. 
On  me  the  spirit  of  God  has  descended.  I  regard  my 
whole  task  ...  as  appointed  by  heaven.  Who  op- 
poses me  I  shall  crush  to  pieces.  Remember  that  the 
German  people  are  the  chosen  of  God."  No  other  coun- 
try of  our  time  has  given,  nor  do  I  believe  would  be 
able  to  give,  so  bare-faced  and  shameless  a  confession 
of  tribal  worship  as  this  from  the  lips  of  the  Prussian 
King;  and  yet,  within  very  definite  limitations,  what  is 
true  of  the  Germans  in  this  regard  is  true  of  all  the 
peoples  against  whom  the  Germans  are  contending. 
The  religion  of  war  has  banished  from  his  throne  within 
the  human  heart  the  universal  "  God,  the  Father,"  and 
placed  in  his,  stead  the  God  of  Battles,  who  is  as 
numerous,  as  I  have  said,  as  the  nations  which  are 
in  arms.  At  one  fell  swoop,  we  are  back  in  the  days 
of  Saul,  when  Samuel,  the  prophet  of  the  Lord,  re- 
vealed unto  the  king  of  Israel  the  word  of  Jehovah, 
"  Go  and  smite  Amalek  and  utterly  destroy  all  that 
they  have,  and  spare  them  not ;  but  slay  both  man  and 
woman,  infant  and  suckling,  ox  and  sheep,  camel  and 
ass." 

In  the  second  place,  as  another  fundamental  con- 
ception of  true  religion,  take  that  idea  of  the  universal 
Brotherhood  of  Man,  which  follows  as  an  immediate 
and  inevitable  corollary  upon  the  idea  of  the  universal 
Fatherhood  of  God.  It  is  no  accident  that  the  same 
great  teacher  and  apostle  of  religion  who  affirmed  the 
existence  of  the  "  one  God  and  Father  of  all,  who  is 
over  all,  and  through  all,  and  in  all,"  also  declared 


\ 


298  RELIGION  FOR  TO-DAY 

that  "  God  hath  made  of  one  blood  all  nations  of  men, 
for  to  dwell  on  all  the  face  of  the  earth."  These  two 
things  inevitably  go  together,  for  if  God  is  one,  then 
man,  as  the  son  of  God,  is  also  one.  His  spiritual 
kinship  with  the  source  of  life  makes  distinctions  and 
separations  between  races  and  religions,  nationalities 
and  classes,  forevermore  impossible.  The  important 
thing  about  a  man  is  not  that  he  is  white,  or  Christian, 
or  German,  or  Caucasian,  nor  yet  that  he  is  black, 
or  Mohammedan,  or  Japanese,  or  Mongolian.  The 
important  thing  about  a  man  is  that  he  is  a  man  — 
that  he  has  a  soul  within  his  body,  which  is  akin  to 
the  souls  of  other  men  —  and  that  he  is  a  member 
therefore  of  a  human  family  which  is  as  inclusive  as 
the  population  of  earth.  More  and  more  clearly,  with 
passing  time  and  mounting  progress,  has  this  idea  of 
the  unity  of  mankind,  which  is  what  we  mean  by  the 
great  word,  humanity,  been  made  manifest  to  our  hearts. 
More  and  more  surely,  under  the  influence  of  this  idea, 
have  racial  prejudices,  national  hostilities,  class  jeal- 
ousies, been  disappearing.  And  behind  all  that  has 
been  seen  and  gained,  is  the  faith  of  religion  that  men 
are  at  bottom  sons  of  God,  who  find  their  essential  unity 
in  the  oneness  of  his  holy  spirit,  and  therefore  brothers 
one  of  another. 

And  now  comes  the  Great  War,  and  with  it  a  religion 
of  war  which  denies  the  fact  of  brotherhood,  and  di- 
vides men  once  again  into  warring  camps !  Men  are  no 
longer  primarily  men;  they  are  first  of  all  Germans, 
or  Russians,  or  Frenchmen.  Men  are  no  longer  living 


THE  GOD  OF  BATTLES  299 

in  a  world  of  men ;  rather  are  they  citizens  of  England 
or  Austria  or  Italy,  owing  no  loyalty  or  love  to  any 
but  their  fellow-countrymen.  Men  are  no  longer  broth- 
ers in  origin,  character  and  destiny;  on  the  contrary, 
they  are  enemies,  who  seek  to  rise  by  another's  fall, 
and  live  at  the  price  of  another's  death.  Everywhere 
throughout  Europe,  where  wars  have  been  declared  and 
rumours  of  war  are  heard,  is  the  supreme  idea  of  spirit- 
ual unity  lost  in  the  nearer  idea  of  national  diversity, 
and  all  the  realm  of  brotherhood  contracted  within 
the  narrow  sphere  of  boundary  lines  between  state  and 
state.  It  is  to  the  Germans  again  that  we  have  to  go 
for  a  perfectly  logical  statement  of  this  principle. 
Thus  General  Bernhardi,  speaking  in  his  famous  book  on 
Germany  and  the  Next  War,  of  the  relation  between 
Christianity  and  warfare,  takes  pains  to  point  out  that 
the  precepts  of  the  religion  of  Jesus  can  be  applied  only 
to  the  relations  existing  between  men  who  are  citizens 
of  the  same  country,  and  not  at  all  to  the  relations 
existing  between  citizens  of  different  countries.  Inter- 
national war  is  entirely  consistent  with  Christianity,  for 
the  reason  that  Christianity  is  intended  to  be  practised 
only  within,  and  not  across,  the  borders  of  a  state. 
"  Christian  morality,"  says  the  General,  in  his  opening 
chapter,  "  is  based,  indeed,  on  the  law  of  love  .  .  . 
(But)  this  law  can  claim  no  significance  from  the  re- 
lations of  one  country  to  another.  .  .  .  Christian  mor- 
ality is  personal  and  social,  and  in  its  nature  cannot  be 
political.  Its  object  is  to  promote  morality  of  the 
individual,  in  order  to  strengthen  him  to  work  unselfishly 


300  RELIGION  FOR  TO-DAY 

in  the  interests  of  the  community."  Which,  being  in- 
terpreted means,  that  every  sentiment  of  brotherhood, 
every  ideal  of  spiritual  kinship,  must  be  confined  to  the 
individuals  within  the  nations,  and  never  extend  beyond 
the  borders  of  one's  native  land.  The  Jews  can  have  no 
dealings  with  the  Samaritans. 

Nor  is  this  any  mere  counsel  of  perfection.  On  the 
contrary,  the  very  moment  that  war  is  declared,  how 
are  all  relations  of  amity  and  goodwill  suspended  be- 
tween the  citizens  of  the  belligerent  countries!  The 
Englishman  is  under  no  further  obligation  to  be  cour- 
teous and  helpful  to  the  German,  nor  the  German  to  the 
Englishman.  The  Frenchman  caught  in  Germany  or 
the  German  in  France,  after  war  is  declared,  is  immedi- 
ately an  object  of  suspicion,  and  is  sooner  or  later  ar- 
rested and  confined  as  a  common  criminal  in  a  concen- 
tration camp.  French  women  of  culture  and  sympathy, 
invited  to  attend  the  Women's  Peace  Congress  at  The 
Hague,  reply  with  scorn,  "  How  would  it  be  possible, 
in  an  hour  like  this,  for  us  to  meet  women  of  the  enemy's 
country?  "  An  English  nurse,  living  in  a  country  con- 
quered and  controlled  by  the  Germans,  is  caught  serving 
the  interests  of  the  wounded  soldiers  of  her  country,  out 
of  sheer  sympathy  for  weakness  and  distress,  and  is  shot 
to  death  as  though  she  were  guilty  of  some  unpardon- 
able sin.  In  an  instant,  as  though  blood  had  been  poi- 
soned, former  neighbours  are  transformed  into  enemies, 
and  old  friends  into  mortal  foes.  Acts  which  would  con- 
stitute outrageous  offences  in  times  of  peace,  now  under 
the  influence  of  the  religion  of  war,  become  strangely 


THE  GOD  OF  BATTLES  301 

creditable.  Says  a  traveller  in  France  in  the  days  imme- 
diately preceding  the  outbreak  of  the  great  war  between 
the  nations,  "  In  time  we  reached  Belfort  (where)  train 
after  train  kept  pouring  in  from  all  parts  of  France 
with  passengers  bound  for  Switzerland.  .  .  .  They  were 
mostly  Germans  hastening  out  of  France.  To  remain 
in  France  longer  was  dangerous,  for  the  war  fever  was 
spreading,  and  that  meant  that  friendly  men  would  soon 
become  beasts,  and  no  German's  life  would  be  secure. 
.  .  .  The  French  had  been  kindly  the  night  before,  but 
now  the  kindliness  had  changed  into  a  wild  rage  against 
Germans.  It  began  to  be  noticeable  at  Belfort,  and 
even  German  women  and  babies  were  liable  to  violence 
and  insult.  War  in  our  days  knows  no  manners,  no 
humanity,  no  religion.  ...  It  was  only  the  day  before 
in  a  cafe  in  Paris  that  I  heard  a  Frenchman  say  that 
he  would  like  to  have  the  j  ob  of  splitting  every  German 
baby  in  two  with  a  sword."  Thus  does  the  religion  of 
war  make  brotherhood  a  sin,  and  the  conception  of  hu- 
manity a  mockery  and  sham.  It  is  the  universal  verdict 
of  centuries  of  criticism,  that  the  story  of  the  Good  Sa- 
maritan is  the  crowning  expression  of  the  religious  ideal. 
But  from  the  standpoint  of  war  and  its  obligations,  it  is 
plain  that  this  parable  must  yield  place  to  the  tale  of 
Samuel,  hewing  Agag  into  pieces  before  the  Lord. 

Again,  take  the  whole  conception  of  love,  which  most 
of  us  accept  as  the  practical  expression  of  all  that  we 
mean  by  religion.  How  does  this  word  shine  upon  the 
pages  of  the  Bible,  how  does  it  leap  from  the  lips  of  the 
holy  prophets  which  have  been  since  the  world  began, 


802  RELIGION  FOR  TO-DAY 

how  does  it  come  as  the  "  living  water  "  to  those  who 
would  drink  and  never  thirst  again !  The  whole  mean- 
ing of  his  gospel  Jesus  sums  up  in  the  two  great  com- 
mandments of  love  — "  Thou  shalt  love  the  Lord  thy 
God  with  all  thy  heart  and  all  thy  soul  and  all  thy  mind 
and  all  thy  strength,  and  thy  neighbour  as  thyself." 
The  whole  content  of  his  message,  St.  Paul  sets  forth 
under  the  terms  of  faith  and  hope  and  love,  and  "  the 
greatest  of  these,"  he  declares,  "  is  love."  And  finally, 
as  the  perfect  expression  of  the  Christian  religion,  we 
have  the  words  of  St.  John,  "  If  we  love  one  another, 
God  abideth  in  us,  and  his  love  is  perfected  in  us.  For 
God  is  love ;  and  he  that  abideth  in  love  abideth  in  God, 
and  God  in  him.  If  any  man  say,  I  love  God,  yet  hat- 
eth  his  brother,  how  dwelleth  the  love  of  God  in  him? 
For  he  that  loveth  not  his  brother  whom  he  hath  seen, 
cannot  love  God  whom  he  hath  not  seen."  Turn  to 
any  of  the  great  prophets  of  religion  in  ancient  or  in 
modern  times,  and  I  venture  to  say  that  love  is  the  one 
word  which  they  would  choose  as  most  adequately  and 
completely  carrying  the  burden  of  their  cry.  Study  the 
lives  of  men,  from  the  standpoint  of  spiritual  perfection, 
and  I  have  no  doubt  that  we  would  all  of  us  apply  the 
famous  test  of  Abou  ben  Adhem,  who  was  blessed  of 
God  because  he  loved  his  fellow  men.  St.  Paul  summed 
it  all  up  for  all  time,  when  he  affirmed  that  "  love  is  the 
fulfilling  of  the  law." 

Love,  therefore,  must  be  taken  in  the  truest  sense 
of  the  word,  as  a  basic  factor,  perhaps  the  one  basic 
factor,  of  the  practical  religious  life.  That  is,  if  we 


THE  GOD  OF  BATTLES  303 

understand  the  religious  life  as  it  is  commonly  under- 
stood by  normal  men  under  normal  conditions  of  exist- 
ence !  But  not  so  with  the  religion  of  war !  For  here, 
strange  as  it  may  seem,  it  suddenly  becomes  our  duty 
not  to  love,  but  to  hate,  not  to  serve  but  to  kill,  not  to 
cherish  but  to  destroy.  The  best  illustration  of  this 
fact  is  seen  in  that  ghastly  product  of  the  war-litera- 
ture of  the  past  year,  known  as  the  Hymns  of  Hate. 
Most  of  us  associate  these  hymns  with  Germany,  be- 
cause of  that  stupendously  virulent  poem  of  Lissauer, 
which  went  round  the  world  in  a  single  week.  No  one  of 
us  was  left  unacquainted  with  the  terrific  lines,  wherein 
the  German  poet  chanted  the  hatred  of  his  people  for 
the  people  of  England : 

"  Come,  let  us  stand  at  the  Judgment  place, 
An  oath  to  swear  to,  face  to  face, 
An  oath  of  bronze  no  wind  can  shake, 
An  oath  for  our  sons  and  their  sons  to  take. 
Come,  hear  the  word,  repeat  the  word, 
Throughout  the  Fatherland  make  it  heard. 
We  will  never  forego  our  hate  .  .  . 
We  have  all  but  a  single  hate  .  .  . 
French  and  Russian,  they  matter  not, 
A  blow  for  a  blow,  a  shot  for  a  shot, 
We  fight  the  battle  with  bronze  and  steel, 
And  the  time  that  is  coming  Peace  will  seal. 
You  will  we  hate  with  a  lasting  hate, 
We  will  never  forego  our  hate. 
Hate  by  water  and  hate  by  land, 
Hate  of  the  head  and  hate  of  the  hand, 
Hate  of  the  hammer  and  hate  of  the  crown, 
Hate  of  millions,  choking  down. 


304  RELIGION  FOR  TO-DAY 

We  love  as  one,  we  hate  as  one, 
We  have  one  foe,  and  one  alone  — 
England!" 

Certainly  the  war  has  produced  nothing  more  appall- 
ing than  this  passionate  outburst  of  revenge.  But  it  is 
only  fair,  in  justice  to  Germany  and  all  concerned,  that 
we  should  not  forget  that  other  nations  in  this  great 
struggle  have  produced  Hymns  of  Hate,  which  are  only 
less  terrible  than  this  of  the  German  poet  because  their 
writers  have  not  the  genius  of  Lissauer.  Indeed  it  is 
considerable  of  a  commentary  on  the  boasted  fairness 
of  our  newspaper  press,  that  this  German  "  Hymn  "  has 
been  dinned  into  our  ears  until  they  are  wellnigh  para- 
lysed, while  other  hymns  of  the  same  character,  pro- 
duced by  the  Allies,  have  been  left  to  fall  into  oblivion. 
How  many  of  us  remember,  for  example,  the  hideous 
song  of  hate  against  Germany  which  was  chanted  by 
William  Watson,  of  England,  in  the  early  days  of  the 
war?  And  how  many  of  us  have  ever  heard  at  all  of 
that  dreadful  poem  of  Henri  de  Regnier,  of  France, 
which  is  worse  than  the  Lissauer  "  Hymn  "  to  the  extent 
that  it  is  not  merely  a  summons,  but  a  pledge.  Let  me 
read  it  to  you,  and,  as  I  read,  ask  yourselves  what  you 
would  have  thought  of  it,  if  it  had  come  not  from  France 
but  from  Germany.  It  is  called  The  Oath,  and  reads 
as  follows: 

"  I  swear  to  cherish  in  my  heart  this  hate 

Till  my  last  heart-throb  wanes; 
So  may  the  sacred  venom  of  my  blood 

Mingle  and  charge  my  veins! 


THE  GOD  OF  BATTLES  305 

May  there  pass  never  from  my  darkened  brow 

The  furrows  hate  has  worn! 
May  they  plough  deeper  in  my  flesh,  to  mark 

The  outrage  I  have  borne ! 

By  towns  in  flames,  by  my  fair  fields  laid  waste, 

By  hostages  undone, 
By  cries  of  murdered  women  and  of  babes, 

By  each  dead  warrior  son,  .  .  . 

I  take  my  oath  of  hatred  and  of  wrath 

Before  God,  and  before 
The  holy  waters  of  the  Marne  and  Aisne, 

Still  ruddy  with  French  gore; 

And  fix  my  eyes  upon  immortal  Rheims, 

Burning  from  nave  to  porch, 
Lest  I  forget,  lest  I  forget  who  lit 

The  sacrilegious  torch !  " 

No  man,  I  believe,  can  look  upon  stricken  France,  after 
two  years  and  more  of  dreadful  war,  without  feeling  his 
blood  tingle  at  these  lines  of  hate.  There  is  more  rea- 
son, infinitely  more  reason,  for  this  "  Hymn  "  than  for 
the  barbarous  "  Hymn "  of  Lissauer.  And  yet  one 
has  but  to  contrast  these  lines,  "  Lest  I  forget,"  with 
Jesus's  cry  "  Forgive  them,  Father,"  to  understand 
something  at  least  of  the  difference  between  the  religion 
of  peace  and  tbe  religion  of  war. 

Not  all,  however,  of  our  story  has  yet  been  told. 
There  still  remains  to  be  considered  for  a  moment  that 
aspect  of  religion  which  is  known  as  the  moral  law.  In 
every  religious  system,  of  which  we  have  any  knowledge, 


306  RELIGION  FOR  TO-DAY 

there  has  developed  out  of  long  trial  and  experience  a 
body  or  code  of  individual  and  social  morality,  which 
has  been  accepted  by  men  as  the  guide  of  conduct  and 
the  standard  of  character.  From  the  theological  point 
of  view,  this  code  of  ethical  law  has  been  interpreted  to 
men's  minds  as  a  revelation  of  the  will  of  God.  From 
the  psychological  point  of  view,  it  has  been  interpreted 
as  a  reflection  of  man's  inward  experiences  of  happiness 
and  distress.  From  the  sociological  point  of  view,  it 
has  appeared  as  an  embodiment  of  the  wisdom  which  the 
race  has  accumulated  through  many  ages  as  the  result 
of  prosperity  and  disaster,  of  victory  and  defeat. 
Whether  we  accept  one  theory  of  this  origin  of  the  moral 
law  or  another,  it  still  remains  true  that  man  finds  him- 
self in  possession  of  a  careful  formulation  of  things 
which  are  right  and  things  which  are  wrong,  that  man 
receives  and  holds  this  formulation  as  a  law  which 
may  be  violated  only  at  the  peril  of  salvation,  and  that 
man  recognises  behind  this  formulation  a  divine  com- 
mand or  will  which  gives  to  it  its  ultimate  and  perfect 
sanction.  Hence  the  precepts  of  Confucius,  the  truths 
or  paths  of  Buddha,  the  suras  of  Mohammed,  the  com- 
mandments of  Moses,  the  Golden  Rule  and  the  Beati- 
tudes of  Jesus !  These  moral  laws  are  the  teachings  of 
different  men,  they  come  down  to  us  from  different  peri- 
ods of  history,  they  set  forth  the  aspirations  and  prin- 
ciples of  widely-separated  peoples  and  civilisations. 
But  in  spite  of  all  diversity  of  origin  and  character, 
there  is  underlying  them  all  a  certain  uniformity  of  idea 
which  constitutes  one  of  the  most  remarkable  facts  of 


THE  GOD  OF  BATTLES  307 

history.  Running  through  all  ages  and  all  nations,  are 
these  great  ideals  of  conduct,  these  great  laws  of  right 
and  wrong,  which  vary  as  little  as  the  light  which  shines 
from  one  star  to  another.  Thou  shalt  not  kill,  thou 
shalt  not  steal,  thou  shalt  not  bear  false  witness,  thou 
shalt  not  covet  —  these  are  the  commandments  which 
characterise  not  merely  the  religion  of  Israel  but  the 
religion  of  men  everywhere.  All  experience  shows  the 
wrongness  of  these  sins.  Every  mind  revolts  from  the 
iniquity  of  these  offences.  Or,  speaking  finally  in  re- 
ligious terms,  all  men  have  heard  within  their  souls  the 
word  of  God  speaking  these  commands  of  good  and  evil. 
The  world  is  at  bottom  moral  and  not  merely  material. 
The  stars  are  swayed  not  merely  by  physical  but  by 
spiritual  forces.  As  Emerson  puts  it,  in  immortal 
verse : 

"  Out  of  the  heart  of  nature  rolled 

The  burdens  of  the  Bible  old; 

The  litanies  of  nations  came, 

Like  the  volcano's  tongue  of  flame, 

Up  from  the  burning  core  below 

The  canticles  of  love  and  woe." 

Now  the  remarkable  thing  about  the  religion  of  war 
—  the  one  final  testimony  to  the  truth  which  I  am  most 
anxious  to  impress  upon  your  minds  —  is  the  fact  that 
this  so-called  religion  exactly  reverses  all  the  precepts 
of  right  and  wrong  which  have  come  to  man  from  the 
universal  conscience  of  the  race,  or  from  the  central 
mind  and  will  of  God,  and  lays  upon  his  startled  soul  the 
grim  command  to  make  evil  henceforward  his  good. 


RELIGION  FOR  TO-DAY 

The  ethical  code  of  the  soldier,  that  is  to  say,  is  the  pre- 
cise opposite  of  the  ordinary  ethical  code  of  the  ordinary 
man  under  ordinary  conditions.  It  is  the  soldier's  duty 
to  steal  —  steal  and  destroy  anything  that  belongs  to 
the  enemy  and  can  serve  in  any  conceivable  way  the  in- 
terests of  the  enemy.  It  is  the  soldier's  duty  to  bear 
false  witness  —  to  tell  a  lie  on  every  occasion  when  the 
enemy  may  be  deceived  and  thereby  led  astray.  It  is  the 
soldier's  duty  to  kill  —  to  commit  murder  by  wholesale 
for  the  destruction  of  the  enemy  and  the  furtherance  of 
his  own  cause.  These  dreadful  crimes,  be  it  noted,  are 
not  laid  upon  the  soldier  as  possibilities,  or  alternatives, 
or  examples  of  better  or  worse.  They  are  commands, 
imperatives,  duties  —  obligations  as  insistent  as  any 
of  the  ten  tables  of  the  law.  The  soldier  must  be  a  thief, 
a  liar,  a  murderer,  else  is  he  not  a  soldier.  These  are 
the  laws  of  war,  as  the  other  and  more  beneficent  laws  are 
laws  of  peace  —  and  these  laws  must  be  obeyed  as 
truly  in  the  one  case  as  in  the  other.  The  God  of  Bat- 
tles, in  other  words,  is  a  God  who  is  served  by  deceit, 
violence,  dishonour,  cruelty,  lust,  murder.  All  of  which 
means  that  he  is  not  God  at  all,  but  the  Devil !  For  do 
you  remember  how  John  Milton  makes  his  lordly  Satan 
talk,  when  the  fallen  angel  has  been  cast  out  of  heaven, 
and  lies  prostrate  in  the  depths  of  hell?  These  are  the 
words  of  "  the  Arch-Fiend,"  as  set  down  in  Paradise 
Lost  — 

"  Fallen  Cherub,  to  be  weak  is  miserable, 
Doing  or  suffering:  but  of  this  be  sure 


THE  GOD  OF  BATTLES  309 

To  do  aught  good  never  will  be  our  task, 

But  ever  to  do  ill  our  sole  delight, 

As  being  the  contrary  to  His  high  will 

Whom  we  resist  .  .  . 

Farewell  remorse !  All  good  to  me  is  lost ; 

Evil,  be  thou  my  Good." 

Here,  now,  are  some  of  the  things  which  distinguish 
the  religion  of  war  from  religion  as  we  ordinarily  know 
and  practise  it.  In  the  place  of  the  "  one  God  and 
Father  of  all,"  it  gives  us  a  world  of  many  gods.  In  / 
place  of  the  great  brotherhood  of  man,  it  gives  us  a 
human  family  divided  into  warring  clans  and  hostile 
tribes.  In  place  of  love,  it  gives  us  hate,  as  "  the  great- 
est thing  in  the  world."  And  in  place  of  good,  it  gives 
us  evil  as  the  law  of  the  Most  High.  We  only  have  to 
study  such  contrasts  as  these  for  a  moment,  I  believe, 
to  understand  that,  in  spite  of  the  devotion  of  churches 
and  the  enthusiasm  of  priests,  the  religion  of  war,  as  a 
plain  matter  of  fact,  is  not  religion  in  the  true  sense  of 
the  word  at  all.  Religion  has  to  do  with  God,  the 
Father  of  men,  whose  will  is  love  and  whose  work  is  good. 
The  religion  of  war,  on  the  contrary,  as  Milton  so 
clearly  reveals,  has  to  do  with  Satan,  "  the  Adversary  " 
of  men,  whose  will  is  hate  and  whose  work  is  evil.  Which 
brings  me,  by  still  another  line  of  approach,  to  that  doc- 
trine which  is  the  supreme  conviction  of  my  life  these 
days,  that  religious  men,  Christian  men,  cannot  have 
anything  to  do  with  war !  For  it  is  the  business  of  re- 
ligionists, of  Christians,  to  "  have  no  other  God  "  be- 
fore God,  to  "  live  at  peace  with  all  men,"  to  "  love  one 


310  RELIGION  FOR  TO-DAY 

another,"  to  obey  the  moral  law.  And  these  are  the 
very  things,  please  note,  which  they  cannot  do  in  time  of 
war. 

Therefore  do  I  come  in  conclusion  to  that  dilemma 
which  I  have  presented  so  many  times  before  —  the 
choice  between  religion  and  war,  between  Christ  and 
Caesar,  between  the  God  of  Love  and  the  God  of  Battles. 
One  of  these,  and  not  both,  must  we  choose.  For  "  no 
man  can  serve  two  masters;  either  he  will  hate  the 
one  and  love  the  other ;  or  else  he  will  hold  to  the  one 
and  despise  the  other."  And  oh,  as  we  value  our  own 
souls  and  the  souls  of  all  men  everywhere,  let  us  be 
careful  how  we  choose,  for  as  we  choose,  so,  we  may  be 
sure,  shall  we  also  live. 

"  As  (our)  gods  (are),  so  (our)  laws  (are) ;  Thor  the 
strong  could  reave  and  steal, 

So  through  many  a  peaceful  inlet  tore  the  Norseman's 
eager  keel; 

But  a  new  law  came  when  Christ  came,  and  not  blame- 
less, as  before, 

Can  we,  paying  him  our  lip-tithes,  give  our  lives  and  faiths 
to  Thor." 


IS  CHRISTIANITY  A  FAILURE?1 

I  AM  profoundly  moved  as  I  stand  in  my  familiar 
place  this  morning,  and  think  of  all  that  has  occurred 
in  the  world  of  human  affairs  since  last  we  met  to- 
gether. It  was  only  a  few  weeks  ago  that  I  was  preach- 
ing to  you  in  confidence  and  good  cheer,  the  eternal 
gospel  of  peace  on  earth,  goodwill  toward  men.  At  that 
time  there  was  peace  on  earth,  and  so  far  as  we  could 
see  there  was  goodwill  toward  men.  To  be  sure,  there 
was  a  serious  revolution  under  way  in  Mexico ;  there 
were  rumours  of  trouble  in  the  Balkans,  as  there  have 
always  been  rumours  of  trouble  in  that  particular  por- 
tion of  Europe;  and  we  were  told  that  civil  war  was 
threatening  in  Ulster  over  the  passage  of  the  Irish 
Home  Rule  Bill.  It  is  also  to  be  remembered  that 
Europe  was  an  armed  camp  from  end  to  end,  just  as  she 
has  ever  been  since  the  Congress  of  Berlin.  But  over 
the  great  nations  of  the  world,  as  over  some  country 
hillside  on  a  hot  afternoon  of  mid-July,  there  brooded 
peace.  Business  and  pleasure  were  alike  following  their 
accustomed  activities  in  England,  France,  Germany  and 
Russia.  Our  friends  and  kinsmen  journeyed  across  the 
seas  by  the  thousands,  to  visit  cathedrals,  museums,  and 
familiar  playgrounds,  as  they  had  done  every  summer 
for  more  than  a  generation  past.  And  as  the  crown- 

i  The  first  sermon  preached  in  the  Messiah  pulpit  after  the  out- 
break of  the  Great  War. 

311 


RELIGION  FOR  TO-DAY 

ing  events  of  the  European  holiday,  there  had  been  ar- 
ranged two  international  peace  conferences  —  one  in  the 
city  of  Constance,  and  another  in  the  city  of  Vienna. 

To-day,  however,  with  a  suddenness  and  a  complete- 
ness which  are  absolutely  incredible,  the  entire  situation 
has  been  changed.  In  place  of  peace,  we  have  war ;  in 
place  of  goodwill  among  men,  we  witness  the  greatest 
orgy  of  hatred,  lust,  and  strife  that  the  history  of  the 
world  has  ever  known.  Europe  is  no  longer  merely  an 
armed  camp,  but,  from  the  Baltic  to  the  Mediterranean, 
from  the  Atlantic  Ocean  to  the  Caucasus  Mountains,  is 
become  a  battlefield.  From  twenty  to  twenty-five  mil- 
lions of  men  are  at  this  moment  under  arms.  From  one 
million  and  a  half  to  two  millions  of  men  are  locked  in 
mortal  combat  on  the  plains  of  northern  France.  The 
losses  of  property  and  of  men  are  already  so  great  that 
no  one  has  been  able  to  estimate  them.  In  the  battle  of 
the  Marne  alone,  if  conservative  figures  can  be  trusted, 
thirty  times  as  many  men  were  killed  and  wounded  as 
at  the  battle  of  Jena,  twelve  times  as  many  as  at  the 
battle  of  Austerlitz,  and  five  times  as  many  as  at  the  bat- 
tle of  Gettysburg,  the  greatest  conflict  of  the  nineteenth 
century.  And  this  was  but  one  battle  on  one  corner  of 
the  widely-extended  field  of  combat,  and  in  itself  but 
the  beginning  of  the  struggle.  Already  we  have  heard 
of  horrors  too  stupendous  even  to  be  understood;  and 
the  next  gale  that  sweeps  from  the  marshes  of  east 
Prussia,  or  the  waste  lands  of  Galicia,  or  the  smiling 
vineyards  of  France,  may  easily  bring  to  our  ears  news 
infinitely  worse  than  anything  that  we  yet  have  heard. 


IS  CHRISTIANITY  A  FAILURE?        313 

What  will  happen  to-morrow  morning,  what  the  outcome 
of  it  all  will  be,  what  will  be  left  when  the  last  gun  has 
been  fired  and  the  last  soldier  slain,  no  man  can  say! 
But  that  we  are  witnessing  the  greatest  war  since  the 
passing  of  Napoleon,  confronting  the  most  complete  and 
universal  upheaval  of  ordered  life  since  the  decline  and 
fall  of  the  Roman  Empire,  facing  the  largest  losses  of 
blood  and  treasure  that  mankind  has  ever  endured  — 
all  this  is  absolutely  certain ! 

A  thousand  questions  of  the  first  importance  have 
been  raised  by  this  sudden  convulsion  which  has  seized 
upon  our  modern  world  —  no  one  of  them  so  vital  or  so 
embarrassing,  at  least  from  our  particular  point  of  view, 
as  that  relating  to  Christianity.  Do  we  not  have  here, 
it  is  being  said  on  every  side  by  Christians  and  non- 
Christians  alike,  a  final  and  perfect  demonstration  of  the' 
failure  of  the  Christian  religion?  Here  has  Christianity 
been  preaching  its  gospel  of  peace  and  goodwill  for 
nineteen  hundred  years.  For  sixteen  hundred  of  these 
years  at  least,  the  Christian  church  has  been  the  might- 
iest organised  power  for  good  or  ill  that  humanity  has 
known.  To-day  it  represents,  all  things  considered,  the 
largest,  wealthiest,  most  widely  extended  and  deeply 
rooted  institution  in  the  world.  Seven  of  the  eight  na- 
tions now  engaged  -1  in  the  struggle  for  armed  supremacy 
are  nominally  Christian.  Five  at  least  of  these  nations 
support  great  ecclesiastical  establishments  for  the  prop- 
agation of  the  religion  of  Jesus,  as  a  regular  part  of 
the  machinery  of  government.  In  two  of  these  na- 

i  September,  1914. 


314  RELIGION  FOR  TO-DAY 

tions,  the  head  of  the  state  is  at  the  same  time  the  head 
of  the  church,  and  the  official  representative  therefore  of 
Christ  and  the  custodian  of  his  gospel.  It  is  amid  such 
professions  and  conditions  of  adherence  to  his  person 
and  to  his  church,  that  we  see  the  world  of  Christendom 
plunged  into  a  war  of  such  barbaric  fury  as  even  the  so- 
called  world  of  paganism  has  never  equaled!  Nine- 
teen hundred  years  of  preaching  and  praying,  of  mar- 
tyrdom and  sacrifice  —  and  this  is  the  result !  Nine- 
teen hundred  years  of  scholars  giving  of  their  learning, 
priests  of  their  devotion,  kings  of  their  power,  the  multi- 
tudes of  their  hard-earned  substance  —  and  to  no  other 
end  but  this !  What  wonder  that  an  acute  observer  and 
valiant  prophet,  like  Mr.  H.  G.  Wells,  is  moved  to  as- 
sert, at  this  crisis  of  human  agony,  that  he  finds  it  "  an 
extraordinary  thing  to  go  now  and  look  at  one's  parish 
church  and  note  the  pulpit,  the  orderly  arrangement 
for  the  hearers,  the  proclamations  on  the  doors,  to  sit 
awhile  on  the  stone  wall  about  the  graves  and  survey 
the  comfortable  vicarage,  and  to  reflect  that  this  is  just 
the  local  representation  of  a  universally  present  organ- 
isation for  the  communication  of  ideas,  that  all  over 
Europe  there  are  such  pulpits  and  such  possibilities  of 
gathering,  and  seeing  that  they  gather  nothing  and 
(accomplish  nothing)." 

It  would  be  foolish  to  blind  our  eyes  to  the  fact  that 
Christianity  is  facing  to-day  the  most  serious  crisis  of 
its  history.  The  question  as  to  the  failure  of  Christian- 
ity, to  be  sure,  has  been  asked  many  times  before  this. 
It  has  been  asked  again  and  again,  for  example,  when 


IS  CHRISTIANITY  A  FAILURE?        315 

an  individual  who  has  professed  to  be  a  Christian  goes 
to  pieces  morally,  or  when  a  whole  society,  like  that  of 
18th-century  France,  is  rotten  with  corruption.  It  has 
been  asked  more  frequently  and  more  emphatically  when 
such  an  obviously  unchristian  institution  as  chattel 
slavery  has  been  allowed  to  flourish  under  the  shadow 
and  even  with  the  blessing  of  the  church.  It  has  been 
asked  with  peculiar  insistence  in  our  own  day,  when 
poverty,  disease,  labor  oppressions,  prison  abomina- 
tions, city  miseries  of  various  kinds,  are  seen  to  flourish 
in  open  and  flagrant  violation  of  the  basic  principles 
which  are  supposed  to  be  characteristic  of  the  religion 
of  the  Nazarene.  But  never  before  has  this  question 
been  driven  in  upon  our  minds  and  hearts  with  such  ir- 
resistible power  as  it  is  to-day  by  the  indescribable  and 
inexcusable  outrages  of  this  universal  war.  Does  not 
the  mere  fact  of  such  a  recrudescence  of  barbarism  as 
this  prove,  beyond  any  question,  that  Christianity  is  at 
the  worst  a  positive  evil  and  at  the  best  a  mere  futility  ? 
Does  not  the  inability  of  the  church  to  stay  this  conflict 
in  the  beginning,  and  now  to  bring  it  to  a  speedy  end 
or  at  least  to  mitigate  in  some  measure  its  accompanying 
horrors,  demonstrate  with  precision  the  permanent  fail- 
ure of  the  church  as  an  organisation  for  human  better- 
ment? Why  use  this  tool,  or  wield  this  weapon,  or 
travel  this  road,  any  longer?  Why  not  frankly  admit, 
in  the  face  of  such  a  disaster  as  this,  that  Christianity 
has  done  nothing  to  destroy  prejudice,  soften  enmity, 
banish  lust  and  hatred  from  the  human  heart,  and  turn 
to  other  and  more  promising  means  for  establishing  jus- 


316  RELIGION  FOR  TO-DAY 

tice,  brotherhood,  and  peace  among  the  nations  of  the 
earth?  The  rains  have  descended,  the  floods  have  come, 
the  winds  have  blown,  and  behold  this  house  tumbles 
straightway  into  hopeless  ruin !  Which  proves,  does  it 
not,  that  it  was  founded  upon  nothing  better  than  the 
sands  of  ignorance  and  superstition? 

It  is  this  question  of  the  failure  of  Christianity,  so 
forced  upon  our  attention  by  the  fearful  events  of  this 
unhappy  day,  that  I  propose  to  consider  in  this  address. 
And  in  order  that  we  may  not  go  sadly  astray  in  our 
consideration  of  the  problem  involved,  I  want  to  make 
perfectly  clear  at  this  point  what  is  implied,  scientifically 
and  philosophically,  by  this  phenomenon  which  on  the 
one  side  appears  to  us  as  failure  and  on  the  other  side 
as  success.  What  do  we  mean  by  success,  and  what 
do  we  mean  by  failure  ? 

In  my  endeavour  to  answer  this  question,  let  me  take 
my  starting  point  from  a  statement  of  Mr.  Herbert 
Spencer  in  his  Principles  of  Ethics.  In  one  of  the  open- 
ing chapters  of  this  great  work,  in  discussing  the  dis- 
tinction between  a  thing  which  is  good  and  a  thing 
which  is  bad,  he  states  that  a  material  object  is  good  if 
it  fulfils  the  purpose  for  which  it  was  intended,  and 
that  it  is  bad  if  it  fails  to  fulfil  this  purpose.  Thus 
he  says,  to  quote  his  own  words,  "  A  good  knife  is  one 
that  will  cut;  a  good  gun  is  one  that  will  carry  far 
and  true;  a  good  house  is  one  that  yields  the  shelter, 
comfort,  and  accommodation  sought  for  " ;  and  a  knife 
or  a  gun  or  a  house  is  called  bad,  if  it  fails  to  fulfil 
these  specific  purposes.  In  the  same  way,  continues 


IS  CHRISTIANITY  A  FAILURE?        317 

Mr.  Spencer,  if  "  from  lifeless  things  we  pass  to  living 
ones,  we  similarly  find  that  these  words  in  their  current 
applications  refer  to  efficient  purpose.  The  goodness 
or  badness  of  a  pointer  or  a  horse,  of  a  sheep  or  an  ox, 
ignoring  all  other  attributes  of  these  creatures,  refers 
to  the  fitness  of  their  actions  for  effecting  the  purposes 
men  use  them  for." 

Exactly  this  same  distinction  can  be  made  in  regard 
to  the  problem  of  success  and  failure.  Indeed,  Mr. 
Spencer  intimates  as  much  when  he  says  later  on,  in  this 
same  chapter  which  I  am  quoting,  "  that  we  call  things 
good  or  bad  according  to  their  success  or  failure." 
From  this  point  of  view,  if  we  want  to  know  whether  a 
certain  thing  is  a  success  or  a  failure,  we  must  first 
find  out  the  inherent  purpose  of  the  particular  object 
which  is  under  investigation,  and  then,  in  the  second 
place,  put  the  object  to  the  practical  test,  to  see  if  this 
inherent  purpose  is  fulfilled.  Thus,  to  use  some  of  the 
examples  suggested  by  Spencer,  I  hold  in  my  hand  here 
a  knife  and  I  want  to  know  if  that  knife  is  a  success. 
In  determining  this  question,  I  first  ask  myself  what 
a  knife  is  for ;  and  then  concluding  that  its  purpose  is 
that  of  cutting  wood  and  other  material,  I  at  once  pro- 
ceed to  open  a  blade,  and  see  by  actual  experiment  what 
its  qualities  are  in  this  direction.  If  it  cuts  quickly  and 
smoothly,  I  call  the  knife  a  success;  if  not,  I  have  no 
hesitation,  whatever  its  merits  in  other  directions,  in 
calling  it  a  failure.  So  with  a  gun,  which  I  understand 
to  be  an  instrument  for  discharging  a  bullet  into  a 
distant  target.  In  determining  the  question  of  the 


318  RELIGION  FOR  TO-DAY 

merit  of  my  rifle  as  such  an  instrument,  I  instantly  pro- 
ceed to  load  and  fire ;  and  according  or  not  as  my  ball 
goes  far  and  true,  I  call  the  gun  a  success  or  a  failure. 
And  the  same  thing  is  true  of  a  house  or  a  building. 
In  the  city  of  Boston,  for  example,  there  is  a  famous 
Public  Library.  From  the  point  of  view  merely  of  its 
beauty  as  a  building,  the  structure  ranks  as  one  of  the 
two  or  three  supreme  masterpieces  of  American  architec- 
tural achievement.  In  studying  it  as  a  library,  however, 
we  remember  that  its  one  specific  purpose  as  a  building 
is  not  to  be  beautiful  and  impressive  but  to  facilitate 
the  storing  and  handling  of  large  quantities  of  books. 
And  when  we  discover  the  fact,  long  notorious  in  Bos- 
ton, that  it  is  difficult  to  store  or  handle  books  in  this 
library  with  convenience  or  despatch,  we  at  once  declare, 
in  spite  of  the  dignity  of  its  entrance  portico,  the  won- 
der of  its  staircase,  and  the  greatness  of  its  mural 
paintings,  that  the  building  is  a  failure,  after  all.  The 
whole  phenomenon  of  success  and  failure,  in  other  words, 
is  wrapped  up  in  the  question  of  the  practical  working 
out  of  inherent  purpose.  The  crucial  test  is  the  prag- 
matic test  of  workableness.  Does  an  object  like  a 
knife,  or  an  organism  like  a  hunting  dog,  or  a  movement 
like  democracy,  actually  fulfil  the  inherent  purpose  for 
which  it  is  intended  and  to  which  it  is  dedicated?  Does 
it  work  as  it  ought  to  work,  do  the  things  it  ought  to 
do,  achieve  the  end  it  ought  to  achieve?  If  so,  then  it  is 
a  success !  If  not,  then  it  is  a  failure ! 

Now  the  application  of  all  this  to  the  problem  of  the 
success  or  failure  of  Christianity  is  of  course  evident. 


IS  CHRISTIANITY  A  FAILURE?        319 

If  I  understand  Christianity  at  all,  it  is  the  purpose  of 
this  religion  to  carry  out  the  one  great  and  sublime  pur- 
pose supremely  manifest  in  the  word  and  work  of  Jesus, 
although  not  by  any  means  limited  to  this  one  teacher 
—  that  of  binding  men  together  in  permanent  relations 
of  peace  and  brotherhood  through  the  operation  of  the 
spirit  of  love.  Its  object  is  not  to  build  churches,  or 
establish  hierarchies,  or  write  and  defend  creeds ;  not  to 
put  the  name  of  Christ  into  any  state  or  national  con- 
stitution; not  to  force  allegiance  to  Christ  upon  any 
willing  or  unwilling  convert  in  India  or  Patagonia ;  not 
to  lay  down  the  acceptance  of  any  interpretation  of 
Christ's  person  as  the  condition  of  salvation  in  this 
or  any  other  world.  The  purpose  of  Christianity  is 
simply  to  increase  the  sum  total  of  goodwill  in  the  hearts 
of  men,  and  thus  the  sum  total  of  genuine  happiness,  se- 
curity and  peace  in  the  world;  to  extirpate  hate  and 
foster  love;  to  banish  prejudice  and  suspicion,  and 
establish  sympathy  and  understanding;  to  allay  vio- 
lence and  discord,  and  cherish  gentleness,  meekness,  and 
sacrifice  "  for  others'  sakes  " ;  to  exalt  the  dignity  of 
human  nature,  maintain  the  equality  of  men  in  the  do- 
main of  the  spirit,  reveal  that  sense  of  brotherhood 
which  will  disarm  injustice,  overthrow  oppression,  and 
banish  evil  from  the  inhabited  world;  to  bring  in  that 
Kingdom  of  God,  that  democracy  of  man  —  call  it  what 
you  will  —  which  means  a  social  order  determined  and 
controlled  not  by  fear,  or  greed,  or  pride,  or  "  wicked- 
ness in  high  places,"  but  by  the  simple  and  noble  prin- 
ciples of  the  spirit  which  we  have  come,  through  long 


320  RELIGION  FOR  TO-DAY 

tradition,  to  associate  with  the  life  and  teachings  of 
Jesus.  If  Christianity  does  these  things,  it  is  a  success, 
no  matter  what  it  does  or  does  not  do  in  other  ways.  If 
Christianity  does  not  do  these  things,  then  it  is  a  failure, 
no  matter  how  many  or  how  glorious  its  churches,  how 
numerous  or  how  ardent  its  converts,  how  loud  or  how 
long  its  cries  of  adoration  unto  God.  "  Not  every  one 
that  saith  unto  me,  Lord,  Lord,  shall  enter  into  the  king- 
dom of  heaven ;  but  he  that  doeth  the  will  of  my  Father 
which  is  in  heaven." 

Now  when  we  come  to  the  all-important  question  as 
to  whether  or  not,  in  actual  practice,  Christianity  has 
done  these  things,  and  can  thus  be  judged  to  be  a 
success  or  a  failure  from  this  one  essential  point  of 
view,  I  find  myself  brought  inevitably  to  two  very  defi- 
nite conclusions. 

In  the  first  place,  I  find  that,  wherever  Christianity 
has  been  given  a  fair  and  honest  trial,  it  has  proved  to  be 
a  success  in  every  sense  of  the  word.  To  our  question, 
Is  Christianity  a  Failure?  the  answer  has  often  been 
made,  as  we  know,  that  one  cannot  say  whether  Chris- 
tianity is  a  failure  or  not,  as  it  has  never  been  tried! 
This  answer  is  witty  just  to  the  extent  that  it  is  untrue. 
Christianity  has  been  tried  —  in  most  places  and  at  most 
times  feebly,  timidly,  half-heartedly,  but  even  so,  suc- 
cessfully ;  in  some  few  places  and  on  some  few  occasions, 
enthusiastically,  courageously,  devotedly,  and  always 
thus,  triumphantly.  Jesus  tried  Christianity,  even  if 
nobody  else  did:  and  with  results  so  momentous  that  the 
date  of  his  birth  is  regarded  by  more  than  half  of  hu- 


IS  CHRISTIANITY  A  FAILURE?        321 

manity  as  the  turning-point  in  the  history  of  the  race. 
But  Jesus,  to  his  own  glory  be  it  said,  was  not  the  last 
nor  yet  the  first  to  try  this  great  method  of  human 
living.  Moses  tried  it,  when  he  led  Israel  out  of  the 
land  of  bondage  and  flesh-pots,  and  gave  to  his  people 
those  immortal  laws  which  Jesus  declared  could  all  be 
summed  up  in  the  commandment,  "  Thou  shalt  love  the 
Lord  thy  God,  with  all  thy  mind  and  all  thy  heart  and 
all  thy  soul  and  all  thy  strength;  and  thy  neighbour  as 
thyself."  Isaiah  tried  it,  when  he  bade  his  people  not  to 
trust  in  chariots  because  they  are  many  and  horsemen 
because  they  are  strong,  but  to  turn  rather  to  the  Holy 
One  of  Israel  and  trust  in  him  alone.  Socrates  tried  it, 
when  he  listened  to  the  still  small  voice  within  his  breast, 
and  commended  to  his  disciples  his  precepts  of  the 
virtuous  life."-  Marcus  Aurelius  tried  it,  when  he 
learned  to  possess  his  own  soul  amid  the  temptations 
of  the  Roman  palace  and  the  trials  of  the  German  biv- 
ouac, and  to  rule  his  people  with  equity  and  compas- 
sion. St.  Ambrose  tried  it,  when  he  refused  to  allow  the 
great  Emperor  Theodosius  to  bring  his  gift  to  the  altar 
until  he  had  first  reconciled  himself  to  his  brethren,  the 
people,  whom  he  had  outraged  with  violence  and  oppres- 
sion. St.  Francis  tried  it,  when  he  cast  away  the  wealth 
and  comfort  into  which  he  was  born,  and  went  out  lit- 
erally naked  to  live  the  life  of  poverty  and  obedience. 
William  Penn  tried  it,  when  he  came  unarmed  into  the 
wilderness  of  Pennsylvania,  and  lived  at  peace  with  the 
Susquehanna  Indians.  David  Livingstone  tried  it,  when 
he  lost  himself  in  Africa,  and  bound  to  him  with  ties  of 


RELIGION  FOR  TO-DAY 

undying  love  the  ruthless  savages  of  the  jungles.  Leo 
Tolstoy  tried  it,  when  he  put  on  his  peasant  shirt,  took 
in  hand  his  flail  and  spade,  and  by  the  sheer  power  of  ab- 
negation, non-resistance,  and  universal  sympathy,  so 
plead  the  cause  of  brotherhood  that  his  became  the 
mightiest  voice  of  the  nineteenth  century.  Jane  Ad- 
dams  tried  it,  when  she  established  Hull  House  and  made 
friends  with  the  friendless  hordes  of  the  Chicago  slums. 
Thomas  Mott  Osborne  tried  it,  when  he  immured  him- 
self within  prison  walls  for  a  week,  and  found  the  pure 
gold  hidden  away  in  the  hearts  of  the  toughest  convicts 
of  Auburn.  Thousands  of  men  and  women,  in  all  ages 
and  among  all  peoples,  unknown  and  unremembered, 
have  tried  this  Christianity,  of  which  we  speak  so  slight- 
ingly. And  always,  without  exception,  these  disciples 
have  proved  that  Christianity  does  the  very  thing  which 
it  was  intended  to  do,  and  therefore  is  a  success ! 

Nor  is  it  only  in  private  life  and  by  separate  in- 
dividuals that  Christianity  has  been  thus  successfully 
applied.  More  widely  than  most  of  us  have  ever  real- 
ised, Christianity  has  been  tried  in  the  vast  areas  of 
social  life,  and  large  domains  thereof  have  been  brought 
under  the  sway  of  Christ's  law  in  their  spirit  and  their 
fundamental  structure.  Turn,  for  example,  to  Prof. 
Rauschenbusch's  book  entitled,  The  Christianising 
of  the  Social  Order,  and  read  his  impressive  chapter 
on  "  the  Christianised  sections  of  our  social  order," 
wherein  he  enumerates  one  by  one  the  various  institu- 
tions of  society  which  have  to  some  degree  been  Chris- 
tianised, and  to  just  exactly  this  same  degree  have 


IS  CHRISTIANITY  A  FAILURE?        323 

demonstrated  the  success  of  Christianity  as  a  working 
formula  of  life. 

The  first  institution  which  he  mentions,  and  by  all 
odds  the  most  typical,  is  that  of  the  family.  In  its 
earliest  stages  the  family  was  anything  but  a  lovely  or 
beneficent  relationship.  Having  its  origin  in  pride  and 
brutish  passion,  held  together  by  stern  force  and  utter 
selfishness,  it  worked  out  inevitably  in  the  end  into  the 
most  dreadful  forms  of  despotism  and  exploitation. 
The  servants  in  the  household  were  invariably  slaves, 
whose  comfort  and  even  lives  were  at  the  free  disposal 
of  the  master.  Wives  were  seized  as  booty  in  war  or 
purchased  openly  like  cattle,  and  represented  no  higher 
end  than  the  gratification  of  sex  desire,  the  breeding  of 
children,  and  a  certain  amount  of  unpaid  labour-power. 
The  children,  especially  the  girls,  were  so  much  cap- 
ital, to  be  utilised,  as  Rachel  was  utilised  by  Laban, 
for  the  profit  of  the  father.  Now  and  again  these  in- 
tolerable conditions  were  ameliorated  by  the  develop- 
ment of  real  affection  between  husband  and  wife,  parents 
and  children,  master  and  servants.  But  at  bottom 
the  family  represented  nothing  but  primitive  force  and 
brutality;  and  had  any  old  patriarch,  like  Priam  or 
Jacob,  been  told  that  the  introduction  of  love  and  gen- 
tleness into  the  relationship,  would  not  only  ennoble  the 
persons  involved  but  actually  strengthen  the  family  as 
an  institution,  he  would  have  laughed  the  ridiculous 
proposition  to  scorn. 

And  yet  this  is  just  exactly  what  has  taken  place. 
Slowly  age  by  age,  as  Prof.  Rauschenbusch  points  out, 


324  RELIGION  FOR  TO-DAY 

the  family  has  become  Christianised  —  by  which  we  mean 
that  the  simple  principles  of  Christian  living  have  been 
applied  to  the  human  relationships  involved.  "  The 
despotism  of  the  father,  fortified  by  law,  custom,  and 
economic  possession,  has  passed  into  approximate  equal- 
ity between  husband  and  wife.  The  children  have  be- 
come the  free  companions  of  their  parents,  and  selfish 
parental  authority  has  come  under  the  law  of  unselfish 
service.  Economic  exploitation  by  the  head  of  the  fam- 
ily has  been  superseded  by  economic  co-operation  and 
a  satisfactory  communism  of  the  family  equipment. 
Based  on  equal  rights,  bound  together  by  love  and  re- 
spect for  individuality,  governed  by  the  law  of  mutual 
helpfulness,  the  family  to-day  furnishes  the  natural 
habitation  for  a  Christian  life  and  fellowship."  In 
this  field  of  social  experience,  in  other  words,  Christi- 
anity has  been  tried  with  seriousness  and  sincerity. 
And  lo !  it  has  worked.  It  has  elevated  and  not  lowered 
the  standards  of  life,  it  has  purified  and  not  corrupted 
the  relations  of  men  and  women,  it  has  ennobled  and 
not  degraded  the  personalities  involved,  above  all  it 
has  fostered  the  general  order  and  stability  of  the  family 
as  an  institution,  and  added  immeasurably  to  the  sum 
total  of  peace,  joy,  and  goodwill  among  men.  Here 
in  this  most  intimate  and  therefore  most  difficult  form 
of  social  relationship,  Christianity  has  been  tried,  and 
here  it  has  been  demonstrated,  to  the  extent  of  its  ap- 
plication at  least,  a  triumphant  success. 

What   is   true  here   of   the   family   is   equally   true, 
although  to  a  lesser  degree,  with  certain  other  great 


IS  CHRISTIANITY  A  FAILURE?        325 

institutions  of  our  social  life.  In  the  field  of  organised 
religion  itself,  in  the  field  of  education  and  enlighten- 
ment, more  narrowly  in  the  field  of  politics,  still  more 
narrowly  in  the  field  of  industry,  the  application  of 
the  Christian  principles  of  life  have  been,  or  are  being, 
tried.  And  in  every  case,  without  exception,  the  trial 
proves  successful.  It  is  true  that  nowhere  is  the  ap- 
plication complete,  and  for  this  reason,  and  just  to 
this  extent,  is  the  success  of  Christianity  nowhere  com- 
plete. The  application,  after  all,  even  in  such  an  insti- 
tution as  the  family,  is  still  only  in  process,  owing  to 
our  half-hearted  acceptance  of  the  precepts  of  the 
Nazarene,  and  our  almost  hopeless  timidity  in  putting 
these  precepts  into  practice.  But  so  far  as  the  process 
has  gone,  it  has  been  uniformly  successful,  and  gives 
every  warrant  for  the  confident  expectation  that  further 
and  more  extensive  application  would  be  immediately 
followed  by  further  and  more  extensive  success.  Every 
honest  trial  of  Christianity,  either  in  private  or  social 
life,  only  adds  to  the  impressiveness  of  the  demonstration 
that  Christianity  works.  Every  rigorous  attempt  to 
live  the  law  of  love  only  proves  the  truth  of  Jesus's 
immortal  prophecy  that  "  he  that  heareth  these  sayings 
of  mine  and  doeth  them,  I  will  liken  unto  a  wise  man, 
which  built  his  house  upon  a  rock:  and  the  rains  de- 
scended, and  the  floods  came,  and  the  winds  blew,  and 
beat  upon  that  house,  and  it  fell  not :  for  it  was  founded 
upon  a  rock."  Survey  the  whole  area  of  our  civilisa- 
tion, study  carefully  the  conditions  which  there  prevail, 
and  then  ask  if  Prof.  Rauschenbusch  is  not  right  when 


326  RELIGION  FOR  TO-DAY 

he  lays  down  the  assertion  that  those  domains  of  human 
life  which  have  come  to  some  extent  under  the  sway  of 
Christianity,  interpreted  in  the  larger  spiritual  sense 
of  the  law  of  love,  "  are  by  common  consent  the  source 
of  our  happiness  and  the  objects  of  our  pride,  while 
those  portions  of  the  social  order  which  are  still  un- 
christianised  are  the  source  of  our  misery  and  the  cause 
of  our  shame." 

This  observation  brings  us  now  directly  to  the 
second  of  my  conclusions  in  regard  to  the  problem  of 
the  application  of  Christianity  as  the  test  of  its  success. 
I  have  already  endeavoured  to  demonstrate  that,  wher- 
ever Christianity  as  a  law  of  life  has  been  sincerely 
and  courageously  applied,  it  has  worked.  I  would  now 
add  to  this  the  second  and  complementary  principle, 
that  any  other  law  of  life,  when  sincerely  and  courage- 
ously applied,  has  not  worked.  Christianity  in  other 
words  is  not  only  a  success,  but  it  is  the  only  thing 
in  the  whole  history  of  humanity  which  is  a  success. 

Take,  for  example,  those  very  facts  which  are  most 
commonly,  and  may  I  add,  most  strangely  cited  as  evi- 
dences of  the  failure  of  Christianity ! 

Here  is  a  man  who,  after  long  years  of  professed 
devotion  to  the  church,  goes  morally  to  pieces!  Here, 
we  say,  is  evidence  of  the  failure  of  Christianity !  But 
if  we  come  to  examine  the  exact  conditions  of  this 
offender's  life,  I  wonder  if  we  shall  find  so  much  evi- 
dence of  the  failure  of  Christianity,  as  evidence  of  the 
failure  of  something  else.  I  usually  find,  when  the  life 
of  such  a  man  is  investigated,  that,  whatever  his  theo- 


IS  CHRISTIANITY  A  FAILURE?        327 

logical  professions  or  ecclesiastical  associations,  he  has 
been  practising  not  justice,  mercy  and  good  faith  at 
all,  but  lust,  gree<J  and  hate.  He  has  been  exploiting 
and  not  serving  his  fellow  men,  seeking  the  augmentation 
of  his  powers  and  possessions  at  the  expense  of  the 
public  welfare,  violating  ev<  ry  principle  of  fair-dealing, 
every  precept  of  sympathy,  every  ideal  of  brotherhood, 
in  his  selfish  pursuit  of  his  own  prosperity  and  happi- 
ness. And  in  the  end,  of  course,  his  course  has  brought 
him  nothing  but  tragic  failure.  But  this  failure  is  the 
failure  not  of  Christianity,  but  of  that  neglect  or  even 
defiance  of  Christianity,  which  has  been  the  consistent 
practice  of  this  ruined  life.  This  unhappy  man  built 
his  house  not  upon  the  vrock  of  love  but  upon  the  sands 
of  hate,  and  it  was  inevitable,  sooner  or  later,  that  it 
should  fall. 

Or  take  the  great  fact  of  poverty,  which  is  being 
frequently  cited  in  our  own  age  and  generation  as  a 
crowning  illustration  of  the  failure  of  Christianity.  It 
is  true  that  in  a  truly  Christian  world  no  such  horror 
as  the  swarming  multitudes  of  the  poor  could  exist 
for  a  single  instant.  But  how  long  since,  let  me  ask,  has 
the  industrial  or  economic  world,  to  which  the  phenom- 
enon of  poverty  properly  belongs,  been  entitled  to  be 
regarded  as  in  any  sense  of  the  word  Christian?  As  I 
look  at  the  various  spheres  of  life,  where  men  have 
ordered  relationships  with  one  another,  I  find  no  sphere 
from  which  the  precepts  of  Christianity  have  been,  and 
in  a  large  measure  still  are,  more  absolutely  excluded 
than  from  what  we  know  as  the  economic  order.  "  In- 


328  RELIGION  FOR  TO-DAY 

dustrial  life  has  been  for  centuries  the  unregenerate 
section  of  our  social  life."  It  has  been  the  exact 
antithesis,  for  example,  of  the  Christianised  institution 
of  the  family.  In  place  here  of  co-operation  we  have 
had  competition,  in  place  of  concord  we  have  had 
struggle,  in  place  of  the  Golden  Rule  we  have  had  the 
rule  of  gold.  Selfishness  and  not  sacrifice  has  been 
the  dominating  motive  of  existence,  profit  and  not 
service  the  one  great  aim  of  endeavour,  money  and  not 
men  the  basic  standard  of  activity.  Every  relation- 
ship in  the  economic  order  has  been  characterised  in 
the  past  by  the  absence  and  not  the  presence  of  Chris- 
tian standards  and  ideals.  In  Lis  relations  with  his 
competitors  or  associates  the  business  r<  m  has  obeyed 
the  law  not  of  love  but  of  tooth  and  nail,  which  finds 
expression  in  the  unchristian  maxim  "  every  man  for 
himself,  and  the  devil  take  the  hindmost."  In  his  re- 
lations with  his  employes,  he  has  obeyed  the  law  not 
of  brotherhood  but  of  exploitation,  which  works  out 
into  the  hideous  economic  doctrine  that  labour  is  a 
commodity,  to  be  purchased,  like  other  commodities,  in 
the  cheapest  market.  And  in  his  relations  with  the 
consumer,  he  has  obeyed  the  law  not  of  service  but  of 
profit,  which  is  formulated  in  the  repulsive  phrase, 
caveat  emptor,  "  let  the  buyer  beware  "  !  The  whole 
atmosphere  and  substance,  all  the  law  and  all  the  life, 
of  the  world  of  industry  is  summed  up  in  the  cynical 
observation  so  universally  familiar,  "  Business  is  busi- 
ness "  —  by  which  it  is  meant  that  business,  whatever 
else  it  may  be,  is  certainly  not  charity,  or  love,  or 


IS  CHRISTIANITY  A  FAILURE?        329 

fellowship,  or  brotherhood,  or  any  other  sentimental 
nonsense  commonly  associated  with  the  Christian  re- 
ligion. 

Now  here  do  we  have  one  clearly  defined  sphere  of 
life  wherein  men  have  attempted  to  get  along  without 
any  regard  for  the  spiritual  laws  laid  down  by  Jesus. 
And  the  result  of  it  all  is  seen  in  the  moral  degra- 
dation of  the  few  at  the  top  and  the  material  and  moral 
degradation  of  the  many  at  the  bottom.  Poverty  with 
all  its  attendant  agonies  —  tenements,  slums,  child  vla- 
bour,  industrial  accidents,  defenseless  old  age,  unem- 
ployment, tuberculosis,  prostitution,  death  —  this  is  the 
perfect  demonstration  of  the  failure  not  of  our  Chris- 
tian civilisation,  but  of  that  great  section  of  our  civil- 
isation which  is  triumphantly  unchristian.  Its  suffer- 
ings and  miseries,  corruptions  and  contagions,  are  the 
fruit  of  our  neglect  and  defiance  in  the  economic  realm 
of  Christianity.  It  is  the  curse  of  God  upon  the  brow 
of  Cain.  And  it  is  the  glory  of  our  time,  let  it  be 
said  in  all  justice,  that  the  world  is  awakening  to  this 
fact  and  demanding  that  poverty  shall  go.  Let  it  be 
noted,  also,  as  signifying  the  true  relation  between 
Christianity  and  poverty,  that  the  world  is  seeking  its 
deliverance  from  this  horror  not  by  abandoning  Chris- 
tianity as  a  failure  but  by  clinging  to  it  as  a  success 
wherever  tried,  and  extending  it  to  this  as  it  has  already 
been  extended  to  other  fields.  Nothing  is  more  re- 
markable to-day  than  the  sincere  endeavour  of  our  more 
enlightened  business  men  to  put  into  practical  operation 
in  their  factories,  their  offices,  and  their  railroads,  the 


330  RELIGION  FOR  TO-DAY 

basic  precepts  of  the  religion  of  Jesus,  unless  it  be 
the  success,  in  the  terms  of  prosperity,  happiness,  and 
general  goodwill,  which  this  endeavour  is  achieving. 
For  the  first  time  in  the  history  of  the  world  we  are  be- 
ginning to-day  to  see  the  end  of  poverty  —  and  this  be- 
cause we  are  for  the  first  time  beginning  to  see  the 
identity  of  Christianity  and  sound  economics. 

Exactly  the  same  line  of  argument  must  be  laid  down 
in  regard  to  this  fearful  war  which  is  at  this  hour 
ravaging  the  world.  How  is  it  possible  for  any  sane 
man  to  see  in  this  awful  carnival  of  blood  and  iron 
an  evidence  of  the  failure  of  Christianity?  I  see  in 
this  stupendous  tragedy  the  failure  of  battleships  and 
standing  armies  to  safeguard  international  peace;  I 
see  the  failure  of  militarism  to  train  great  peoples  in 
the  virtues  of  gentleness  and  honour;  I  see  the  failure 
of  secret  diplomacy  to  guide  the  nations  in  the  paths 
of  amity  and  co-operation;  I  see  the  failure  of  polit- 
ical autocracies  to  maintain  the  true  welfare  of  the 
people  whom  they  claim  to  rule  by  divine  right;  I  see 
the  failure  of  commercial  interests  to  bind  the  nations 
together  by  the  bonds  of  profit  and  exchange;  I  see 
the  failure  of  a  social  order  to  prosper  on  the  basis  of 
greed,  hatred,  and  oppression;  I  see  the  failure  of  the 
idea  that  force  can  rule  the  world  and  so  ruling  bring 
happiness  and  health  to  men.  All  these  failures  I  see. 
But  nowhere  do  I  see  a  failure  of  Christianity!  For 
when  and  where  has  Christianity  had  any  part  in  the 
governance  of  peoples  ?  When  have  kings  or  emperors 
ruled  in  the  spirit  of  the  carpenter  of  Nazareth?  When 


IS  CHRISTIANITY  A  FAILURE?        331 

have  statesmen  lifted  their  gaze  from  sordid  pictures 
of  material  aggrandisement  to  loftier  visions  of  a  uni- 
versal humanity?  For  forty  years  —  ever  since  the 
close  of  the  Franco-Prussian  War  —  the  nations  of 
Europe  have  been  rearing  the  edifice  of  social  order 
not  on  the  rock  of  brotherhood  and  love,  but  upon  the 
sands  of  force,  conspiracy,  and  pride.  In  the  closing 
days  of  July,  1914,  the  rains  of  hatred  descended,  the 
floods  of  greed  came,  the  winds  of  fear  blew,  and  to- 
gether they  beat  upon  that  lofty  structure.  And  it 
fell !  And  in  all  the  blood  and  tears,  agony  and  shame 
of  this  black  hour  of  human  history,  we  see  how  great 
is  the  fall  thereof.  "War,"  said  William  Ellery 
Channing,  "  will  never  yield  but  to  the  principles  of 
universal  justice  and  love,  and  these  have  no  sure  root 
but  in  the  religion  of  Jesus  Christ." 

O  my  friends,  there  is  no  failure  in  Christianity !  If 
the  test  of  success  be  the  power  to  fulfil  inherent  pur- 
pose, Christianity  is  the  one  stupendous  success  of  all 
the  ages.  If  there  is  any  failure  here  at  all,  it  is  the 
failure  of  men  and  women  as  individuals,  and  of  the 
church  as  an  organisation,  to  take  Christianity  seri- 
ously, to  preach  it  courageously,  and  to  practise  it 
uncompromisingly.  You  and  I  as  Christians  fail  often 
enough,  because  of  our  little  faith.  The  church,  as 
the  organised  body  of  Christians,  fails  often  enough, 
because  of  its  ignorant  or  corrupted  confidence  in  the 
things  of  this  world.  The  whole  history  of  Christianity, 
from  one  point  of  view,  is  the  story  of  the  failure  of 
the  church  to  hear  the  sayings  of  the  Master  and 


332  RELIGION  FOR  TO-DAY 

then  to  do  them.  Nor  is  this  failure  all  a  matter  of 
the  past.  Woful  was  the  failure  of  the  church  to 
speak  and  act,  when  the  war-lords  of  Europe  lifted 
their  swords  and  sounded  the  call  to  arms !  Woful 
is  its  failure  to-day  in  blessing  the  banners  of  the 
combatants  and  praying  God  for  victory  upon  this 
army  or  upon  that!  But  the  failure  of  the  feeble 
individual  or  the  misguided  church  has  as  little  to  do 
with  the  perfect  truth  of  Christianity,  as  the  dirty 
windows  of  my  room  have  to  do  with  the  dazzling  ra- 
diance of  the  sunlight  which  struggles  through  its  un- 
washed panes.  Many  hopes  and  many  dreams  have 
been  shattered  in  the  last  few  weeks.  The  wreck  and 
ruin  of  this  stupendous  conflict  is  not  merely  that  of 
cities,  fields,  and  ships,  but  that  also  of  systems  of 
thought,  principles  of  action,  visions  of  the  mind  and 
faiths  of  the  heart.  But  despite  the  sneers  and  scoff- 
ings  of  the  hour,  Christianity  is  not  to  be  numbered 
among  the  losses  of  mankind.  More  truly  than  ever 
do  we  see  and  can  we  know  to-day  that  love  is  the 
greatest  thing  in  the  world,  that  the  law  of  Christ  is 
the  law  of  life,  that  the  truth  divinely  taught  and 
divinely  lived  by  the  Prince  of  Peace 

"  is  still  the  light 
Which  guides  the  nations  groping  on  their  way." 

This  is  my  answer  to  our  question,  Is  Christianity 
a  Failure?  Wherever  in  private  or  social  life  it  has 
been  tried,  we  find  peace  and  joy  and  love  supreme. 
Wherever  in  private  or  social  life  it  has  been  neglected 


IS  CHRISTIANITY  A  FAILURE? 

or  defied,  we  find  discord,  misery,  and  hate.  In  the 
face  of  such  results,  shall  we  be  persuaded  to  abandon 
Christianity  or  shall  we  be  persuaded  to  cling  to  it, 
speak  for  it,  work  for  it,  more  devotedly  than  ever 
before,  in  the  confident  assurance  that  it  and  it 
alone  is  the  hope  of  the  darkened  world?  This 
is  no  time  for  faltering  or  dismay.  It  is  true  that 
hatred  and  lust  are  ravaging  the  earth,  that  the  brute 
passions  of  the  jungle  are  loosed  to  do  their  worst, 
that  savagery  is  for  the  moment  triumphant.  But  in 
all  this  we  see  the  failure  not  of  Christianity  but  of 
barbarism,  not  of  Christ  but  of  Caesar,  not  of  the  law 
of  love  but  of  the  policy  of  blood  and  iron.  A  social 
order  which  knows  not  Christ  has  finally  and  forever 
crashed  to  ruin,  and  in  the  agony  of  its  downfall  is 
the  challenge  to  those  who  believe  in  him  to  bring  in 
his  Kingdom  upon  the  earth. 

The  message  of  the  hour,  therefore,  is  clear,  the  path 
of  duty  plain.  Through  the  cruel  days  and  bitter 
nights  of  the  awful  years  that  are  now  impending,  while 
men  die  in  blood  upon  the  field  of  battle  and  women 
die  in  tears  within  the  stricken  home,  while  little  children 
whimper  in  fear  and  cry  to  ears  that  cannot  hear 
and  seek  with  faltering  feet  for  paths  now  strangely 
lost,  while  fields  are  blasted  like  a  desert,  inhabited 
places  laid  waste,  and  the  very  heavens  blotted  out 
in  smoke  and  leaping  flame,  while 

"  Our  world  has  passed  away 
In  wantonness  o'er  thrown, 


334  RELIGION  FOR  TO-DAY 

There  is  nothing  left  to-day 
But  steel  and  fire  and  stone/' 

let  us  here  in  the  safe  refuge  of  this  favoured  land, 
do  that  which  it  is  alone  left  us  to  do  —  bear  witness, 
through  the  spoken  word,  the  toiling  hand,  the  loving 
heart,  to  our  abiding  trust  in  the  law  of  love  as  the 
rock  upon  which  to  rear  the  new  society  that  must  some 
day  rise  out  of  the  ashes  of  the  old.  The  time  will 
be  long,  the  work  hard,  the  agonies  immeasurable.  But 
on  some  glad  day  "  the  tumult  and  the  shouting  "  will 
die,  "  the  captains  and  the  kings  depart."  And  then, 
if  we  have  been  faithful  to  the  heavenly  vision,  we  shall 
make  the  stricken  world  to  see  that,  amid  all  its  blood 
and  tears  and  wreckage, 

"  Still  stands  thine  ancient  sacrifice, 
A  humble  and  a  contrite  heart." 

Do  you  remember  the  parable,  told  long  years  ago 
by  the  assassinated  Jaures,  of  the  enchanted  forest  which, 
"  in  a  single  day  burst  forth  into  magnificent  flower- 
ing "  under  the  gracious  influence  of  the  April  sunshine? 
Full  many  a  time,  in  the  harsh  tempests  of  winter,  this 
sunshine  must  have  seemed  to  be  a  failure.  But  at  last, 
in  God's  good  time,  it  proved  itself  to  be  the  source 
of  life,  and  behold !  all  the  forest  became  beautiful  with 
''joy  and  peace."  Jaures  called  this  sunshine  the 
Ideal  of  Justice;  I  call  it  Christianity,  or  the  law  of 
love.  But  'call  it  one  thing  or  another,  like  him  we 
hail,  in  trust  and  hope,  amid  the  darkness  of  this  night 


IS  CHRISTIANITY  A  FAILURE?         335 

of  raging  storm,  "  the  sunbeam  "  that  shall  some  day 
charm  the  forest  of  human  misery  into  the  blossoming 
paradise  of  brotherhood  and  peace ! 


THE    END 


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